


Paging Doctor Lucifer

by InconvenientBrilliance



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Women, F/M, Fem!Winchesters, Lucifer!Nick, tw:torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:50:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InconvenientBrilliance/pseuds/InconvenientBrilliance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchester sisters have been fighting against the impending Apocalypse and a frayed relationship for far too long. Time is slipping and with a demonic asylum, confusing feelings and some erratic angel activity involved it doesn't seem like the hunters' jobs are getting any easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The call came through at just past three in the morning. The shrill, repetitive ring of the phone was one of the few things that could pierce through the heavy sleep of Samantha Winchester and it was, therefore, Sam who answered it. Waking for the phone was a habit long ingrained in the exhausted hunter and one she seemed incapable of turning off; neither danger nor Bobby seemed aware of time zones. She wished, however, that much of the same could be said of Dee; while any sounds of an intruder were surefire ways to wake her sister, Dee roused for no other noise but that or Sam’s distress. Sweet, she supposed, though that didn’t stop her inner bitchy monologue as, slowly but surely, Sam began her forced ascent to the world of the conscious. She took a moment or two to rub as much sleep from her eyes as possible, shoving a hand through her unruly bed-hair before groping for the nightstand where the phone had up until that moment lay dormant.

“Mmmm… Hello?” She winced at the sleep so obvious in her rasping voice, unable to even lift her head from the pilow as her eyes began to drift closed. They’d hit the hay barely two and a half hours ago, their last hunt leaving the girls winded and ready to drop. Dee hadn’t even undressed. Sam had barely managed to remove her pants before sleep had overcome her. She was certain, as she shifted atop the sleazy motel room’s comforter, that there was still blood crusted around the now scabbed head wound at her temple. A light touch confirmed this and she resisted the urge to groan into the phone as the thought of her own dried blood sent her into a dark place. For a moment, there was nothing in response from the other end. All at once her irritability multiplied ten-fold. Rest had not come easy for the sisters and she had been thankful when she had dropped off so easily. The past month had been nothing but case after case after case. More demons and more ghosts and more supernatural death-bringers than they had ever encountered in such a short span of time and she was officially reaching her tipping point.

“Come on, Bobby, if you’re gonna call at-“

“I don’t…don’t have much time…” Instantly Sam was awake, adrenaline rushing violently through her system as the hunter recognized the signs of danger present in the strained, whispered tones from the person on the other end. She opened her mouth, intending to extract as much information as she could in what she felt was a rapidly closing window of opportunity, only to hear the mystery man on the other end speaking once more.

“Something new…weird… So much blood… Vampires or demons or something I just... I don’t even know what the hell…,” Sam’s hackles rose as she heard the man begin to sob on the other end, quiet and muffled over the distance and through the limited connection phones could offer.

“Where are you?” Sam said, urgency evident in her clear voice. “Something, anything; where are you?” Her urgent words were rewarded with harsher sobs, the sound of glass shattering somewhere near the speaker, a cry just loud enough to be heard. More silence, broken only by quiet gasps and sobs from her mystery caller. The grip Sam held on the phone in her hand had tightened, now white knuckling the cheap throwaway phone. Deanna had begun to rouse from the bed beside hers, the sounds familiar in the heated darkness of the motel room.

“Astoria…Ill….Illinois…Please…please I don’t…I know I won’t… You have to get here and get here SOON; they’re going after the children next.” The man’s voice was strained, his volume dropping below even a whisper, his words losing their emphasis in the static of the phone as he delivered what little message Sam could still hear.

“Astoria? Okay... Okay, Astoria; we’ll be there as soon as we can. Get yourself someplace SAFE. Just run, do what you have to do to-,“ Words seemed to leave Sam as the caller’s chilled laughter echoed over the fuzzy line. 

“It’s too late, don’t you GET it, Sam? My life… If making this call will save my little one then that’s all I care about… All any of us care about…Please, please Sammy PLEASE-” His voice wheezed suddenly, a choked scream causing Sam to jerk the phone away from her head, heart jack rabbiting in her chest. She did not have to bring the phone to her ear to hear the shrieks and screams of the dying man on the other line. The familiar click of the light switch and the room was filled with the yellow light of the motel’s musty lamp revealing Dee’s exhausted, drawn form. The light burned the younger Winchester’s eyes, and she closed them to slits, fighting back the wave of misery that now began to eat at her. 

She’d known that voice. Had met the man a few years back when college was an actuality and not simply an oft-indulged fantasy world. Greg, she was sure his name was Greg. He’d had family in Illinois, she remembered. A little brother and sister, grandparents and great-grandparents and both mother and father alive and well. Yes, she’d come to know quite a bit about Greg Sandowsky just as he’d come to know quite a bit about her. Never to the extent of lovers; Sam had already met and fallen in love with Jessie and there would be no turning back from that. But she’d cared for Greg; saving a man from a demon-possessed lover can have that sort of effect. They’d been friends before the incident and, once everything had been said and done, Greg had become someone almost like family.

But Greg was a lifetime ago. She’d neither heard nor seen anything of Greg since-

“Sammy…? Sammy what is it?” Dee’s voice was both a salve and an irritant, reminding Sam that she had not unfortunately just drifted into reality from some strange dream.

“I…I dunno, Dee… We gotta get to Astoria.”

“…Illinois? Astoria, Illinois? Damn it Sam it’s…it’s too early…too late…too WHATEVER… Do you even know who was on the phone? You realize this could all be some sort of…I dunno, elaborate hoax or trap or-” Sam’s hands had clenched against the comforter of the bed, arms shaking as she forced herself to keep her fury reigned in.

“No problem, Deanna. I’ll be sure to inform the monsters to wait until we’ve had eight straight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Do you think I somehow, magically, had this planned? A trap? A HOAX?! Sure, because Greg screaming for his life and begging me to ‘save the children’ is such a hilarious way to trick an old college buddy into visiting.” Her words were laced with acid, venom always hiding beneath her surface bubbling just beneath her outburst. “You can stay here if you want; I’m going to get these sick bastards before any more people have to die just to get to us… Assuming, of course, that that’s what’s ACTUALLY going on.”

“No…No, Sammy, I’m sorry that was…Out of line. If you knew the guy on the phone…” Sam froze, rearing back somewhat at her sister’s rather unexpected apology. Her light blue green eyes met the subtle green-blue hazel of her sister’s and Sam was certain that Dee was looking quite…contrite. For a moment silence fell around the sisters, cocooning them entirely.

Dee sighed then, running a hand through her tousled, close-cropped locks (her recent choice to cut her nearly waist-length hair into a short A-line bob had been unusual at first but suited her nonetheless) as Sam mimicked the action with her nearly shoulder-length wavy curls. 

“Astoria’s about an eight hour drive from here…what say we flip for the first four hours? We won’t be much good to anyone without at least a bit of sleep in us…” Sam paused for a moment, considering briefly the flow of their conversation before finally speaking.

“I think I fell asleep first… I can drive for the first four hours.” Dee sighed, shoulders hunching slightly with what appeared to be relief.

“Good… Cuz I’d just about drifted off when that damn phone went off.” She laughed, the sound forced as she swung her legs around and out of bed and began limping her way to the bathroom. Guilt lanced through Sammy, and she now regretted her anger. She opened her mouth to say something just as the bathroom door slammed shut; she winced before extricating herself from the mass of tangled sheets and blankets and stumbling to the floor. An apology would have to come when time was not quite so of the essence. Sam paused as she tried to collect herself from the depths of her dream. There had been fire. Fire and death. Pain. And above all? Anger. That ever-present anger which had seeped so far within the fiber of her being that it was now tinting her dreams a vibrant, vicious red. With a shaky sigh Sam released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

It had been weeks, nearly a month as a matter of fact, that she had come out of what she now fondly considered the “detox room” at Bobby’s. Nearly a month since even a drop of demon blood had passed her lips. Even now she found herself shaky, nervous on occasion. It had taken longer than she’d even dreamed possible for Dee to accept her back into their comfortable fold and Sam had no intention of screwing it all up again. She glanced down at her hands, shaking even now with just the thought, just the memory, of that tainted blood. Sam scrounged around her bed until she found her jeans shoved half under the bedframe. Ignoring the bloodstains she forced them on, wincing in pain before she set about packing what little had been removed when they’d arrived. Straightening, she swayed on her feet just as Dee was exiting the bathroom.

“Yo, Sam, you uh…you don’t look so great… You sure you’re gonna be okay to take the first shift…?” Subtle undertones of exhaustion fringed Deanna’s words.

“Yeah I’ll uh… I’ll make it. I’m pretty tired but I’ll grab a cup of coffee at an all-night joint and take the first shift. It’s the least I can do, considering you’re falling asleep just listening to me speak.” Sam cocked her hip, eyebrows rising in amusement as she studied the steadily swaying form of her sister. “Don’t worry, just…grab your bag and load up. I’ll be out in a minute, okay?” Her words were met a mute nod as Dee made to grab her duffel from the side of her bed.

“And hey… Dee?”

“Yeah, Sammy?”

“I’m uh… I’m really sorry.” Dee paused, eyebrows knitting together in a look both incredulous and, yes, slightly amused. “For what, Sammy? For…For bringing some horrific creature down on some small town you’ve never visited? And yes, I’m saying that you DIDN’T have anything to do with it. It was just the sleep talkin’, okay? Now are you gonna get moving or what?” WIth a nod Sam made her way around her sister and into the bathroom. Once there, she washed her face free of the blood staining her forehead and attempted to reign in the madness that was her hair. She gave up after only a few moments and restrained her dark, chocolate colored locks in a black hair band she often wore around her wrist. 

Staring in the mirror did nothing more than to accentuate the dark circles beneath her eyes and the weariness in each and every line of her face. Surely they would get a break…surely, one of these evenings they would lie down and sleep at least five hours, FIVE, without being awoken by one of their six phones or by a knock on the door or by…by anything, really. Attempting to recall the last time either of them had achieved a full eight hours of sleep brought with it a laugh that was as harsh as the lights in the bathroom. A few more splashes of the lukewarm water on her face and Sam was as ready as she was ever going to be. 

One last baleful look at the grungy mirror in the grungy bathroom of the grungiest hotel they’d ever stayed at, and Sam flipped the switch for the light in the bathroom, silencing the ever-present hum that seemed to accompany all cheesy motel light bulbs. 

Moments later brought Sammy to the Impala, key to the motel left in the lock and duffel safely stowed in the trunk. Deanna had already stowed her stuff, and though her seat was inclined to be nearly horizontal, she was still sitting up, watching her sister with the same wary eyes she’d BEEN staring at her with since she’d been pulled from Hell. She managed to swallow her sigh as she slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirrors to suit her, all the while ignoring the penetrating gaze of her sister beside her. It was only when she realized that the keys were not waiting in the ignition that Sam let out that sigh she’d held back and finally turned to Dee.

“Keys, Dee…?”

“You SURE, about this Sammy?”

“Yeah, Deanna. I’m sure. It’s not like we have much choice; I can’t just…just ignore that call. Let those people die… And I’m less tired than you so…hand ‘em over, please.” A few tense moments followed her steady words as she held her hand out for the keys. Just when she was beginning to think she’d have to repeat her request in a form that was not quite so sweet, the soft jingle of keys against leather answered her request. Cool metal settled into her palm and she nodded her thanks, inserting the keys and turning the engine over, bringing it to life beneath her hands. The soft purr of the engine cut through the quiet of the night, silencing the insects nearby.

“Go ahead and sleep, Dee… I’m gonna find an all-night coffee joint and then head out…okay?” With a quick glance Sam confirmed that Dee had, in fact, nodded off in the brief time it had taken to start the car. A pang of sympathy went out for her sister; neither of them had gotten much sleep in the past couple of weeks but Dee had experienced the worst kind of sleep. Sure Sam had had her own twisted, dark dreams but Dee seemed to relive her hellish year every time she closed her eyes. Nightmares so loud that they woke Sam; Dee tossing and turning with enough force to throw her to the floor still tangled in her sheets. It seemed that the few times she was able to sleep in relative peace was when they were on the road… In a way, this job was something of a god-send. She’d slept deeply for about half an hour, which was enough to keep her going, and now Dee would get at least four hours of rest.

With a tiny smile she pulled out of the lot and made her way down the street, eyes scoping out both sides of the street in an attempt to locate her caffeine fix.

OoOoOoO

The tension between the sisters had been palpable since Dee had first been pulled free from the Hell she’d been trapped in, tainting the air with a thick darkness that neither could ignore. Deanna had expected Sam to do something crazy with utter disregard for her own life if it meant rescuing her from Hell. She had not, however, expected Sam to sink to the depths that she had. Wrapped around Ruby’s finger, so addicted to demon blood that she couldn’t last without it for longer than a few days, vehemently denying that what she was doing by exorcising those demons was hurting her... Sam had screwed up royally, disappointing Deanna on an entirely new level and what little trust Dee had felt remained between the two had snapped like a delicate thread under too much stress. Sam did what she could, feigning smiles and reigning in her uncontrollable rage as well as she could under the oftentimes harsh circumstances she found herself in and, eventually, it became too much. She had struck out on her own, recognizing the need for space and time as acutely as her sister had.

Time had passed, as it was wont to do. The sisters marched on, independent of one another, towards the impending Apocalypse. It was infuriating to both to be forced together by circumstances out of their control but, as the Archangels continued to insist, their fate could not be changed. Could not be altered. And no matter how much they wanted to be away from each other, no matter how badly Dee and Sam needed time apart, they were left with little else than to band together to provide what united front they could offer against the darkness ahead.

Still… Sam’s gaze had drifted over to her sister at some point during her reminiscing and she found herself hard pressed to turn away. Dee’s lips were just slightly parted, eyes searching for something just behind closed lids. More than anything, more than the hatred for the hunt and the hatred of herself and the inexplicable hatred she felt for her sister, Sam loved her. The love was great and sometimes overwhelming and more than anything Sam knew that she had done what felt necessary to save her. Her anger seemed infinite but it was only her love that knew no true bounds.

A long, harsh exhalation and she brushed her hand across the top of her head, careful not to remove the rubber band holding her hair back. Sleep was beginning to tug at the edges of her vision and she was more than a little frustrated to find that her enormous cup of seemingly never-ending coffee had finally run dry. Though Samantha was tempted to stop and refuel in the most human of ways, she had the horrible feeling that any sort of stop would result in her acknowledging her exhaustion. She might stop for the night, to rest at whatever filthy motel would take them at this hour… Still, the coffee was gone, there was no arguing that. And her head was beginning to nod; this, too, there was no denying. Keeping her eyes open was feeling like an Olympian task. Gritting her teeth, she reached forward and rummaged around in the little space just beneath the radio, fingers deftly pushing aside unnecessary bits and bobs and odds and ends until her fingers touched on a cassette hidden amongst the knickknacks. It was something she’d put aside for just such a moment as this, once her iPod had been demoted to floorboard material. Amongst all the various hard rock and rock and all sorts of moss-covered oldies she’d found what she would consider a jewel. Something she loved and listened to rarely enough that during those rare moments when she DID listen, it was just as unique as ever.

With a quick, furtive glance at Dee (who had curled up on her side and was now facing the passenger side door) Sam gingerly pressed the cassette into the vacant player. She adjusted the volume of the stereo to just above audible as the first strains of guitar began to play, music filling the cab in soft waves of comfort. Though it had been a while, Sam remembered well the song and when the words began she sang along, keeping her voice at the same volume as the music. 

_“Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train_  
And I's feeling nearly as faded as my jeans.  
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,  
It rode us all the way to New Orleans…”

Sam glanced over at Deanna, fingers fluttering towards the controls. Beyond a sigh and a shift in position, there was no indication of Dee returning to the land of the conscious. Feeling a little more confident, Sam turned the music up a few notches, beginning to lose herself in the rhythm of the music.

_“I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty red bandanna,_  
I was playing soft while Bobby sang the blues.  
Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Bobby's hand in mine,  
We sang every song that driver knew...

_Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose,_  
Nothing don't mean nothing honey if it ain't free, now now.  
And feeling good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues,  
You know feeling good was good enough for me,  
Good enough for me and my Bobby M-“

_“McGeeeeeee!”_

Sam blanched, jerking the wheel to the left as she jumped at the sound of her sister’s voice harmonizing with her own. She flushed, cheeks flaming as she brought the Impala back under control and reached out for the volume with fumbling fingers. Dee’s laughter only brought Sam’s simmering anger to a violent bubble and now, seeing red, Sam signaled then pulled the Impala over to the side of the road. Gravel crunched beneath the tires, dirt and tiny stones bumping up into the under carriage of the vehicle with enough force for Deanna to loudly voice her concern. Sam had barely thrown the car into park before she was out and stalking around to the passenger side, yanking the door open just as Dee had been reaching for the handle.

“Sammy wha-“

“It’s been four hours, Dee… My turn to sleep…” She mumbled, cheeks still flushed and heart still tripping in her chest. Inwardly she cursed herself for reacting as harshly as she had…and yet there was no denying her fury, hidden below a thin sheen of embarrassment for her sister having caught her singing to something she proclaimed to dislike. On a level entirely beyond her rationality Sam knew she was overreacting; could see it in the myriad of emotions flushing her sister’s face. Sam was volatile; her reaction forced from some darker depth, but for now there was no denying the way she felt. For a few seconds it seemed that Deanna was going to say or do something, fists clenched at her side, before she sighed, threw her hands in the air and exited the car. Sliding past Sam, she made her way around the front of the car and flopped into the driver’s seat. Sam dropped unceremoniously into the passenger seat and stared ahead into the night. After a moment or two, during which Deanna adjusted the car seat and the mirrors, the Impala purred to life and moving with the grace that came only from muscle memory, led the vehicle back out onto the road.

“Hey, Sammy I uh… I didn’t mean anything by that I was just…surprised! Joplin didn’t seem your style.”

“…I uh…I’m a fan… I guess…” Sam mumbled, readjusting her seatbelt and removing her coat for use as a pillow. “Didn’t…want you…ya know..makin’ fun of me about it…” She shrugged, shifting over onto her side and curling up against the door as Dee had done before.

“Naw…I’m kinda impressed, Sammy. There are worse female singers you could like, ya know? At least Joplin’s got soul…”

“Yeah…Guess that was why I liked her to begin with.” Sam shrugged again, eyelids heavy and beginning to flutter against her own volition as she began the steady descent into sleep. Dee said nothing more, simply turned the volume up just enough for Janis to be heard above the engine, humming softly along with the words. A couple of minutes passed and Sam had nearly fallen into the depths of sleep when she heard Dee murmur, so soft she supposed she wasn’t supposed to hear it.

“You always did have a nice voice, Sammy…” And then there was nothing but Janis and darkness.

OoOoOoOoO

Staring out the windshield and into the darkness of the night, broken only by the twin circles of light originating from the Impala, Deanna allowed her mind to wander as her gaze drifted over to her sister’s prone form. Her hands gripped the wheel with enough force to cause the leather to creak. She was trying. Damn it, she was REALLY trying. But how much more would she have to “deal with?” How many more screw-ups and lies would she have to endure before shit between them was settled? How many more angry outbursts? A quiet, rough chuckle poured from her lips; more likely than not, they’d just keep building these walls and these dams between each other until there wasn’t even a hint of truth left between them. Somehow this was a thought both comforting and miserably depressing.

Deanna ran her left hand through her hair, lingering on the shorter locks in the back. Absently she brushed her hand up and down and through the hair along the nape of her neck; mind lost in what was beginning to feel like the never-ending argument about Sam. Was she still jonesin’ for blood? Was she gonna bend to Lucifer, say yes to the Devil himself? Hell, Dee figured she could ask the same of herself. Maybe, just maybe… she’d be the one who’d fold but to Michael. Would Sam follow suit? Maybe she’d already decided to; maybe she was just waiting for the perfect time to take ol’ Lucifer in. Could be that the blood was calling or another demon was dancing in her head… So many possibilities, too many…

“You’re thinking about Sam, correct?” Dee loosed a strangled cry and just managed to keep the Impala under control (though the same could not have been said about her jack-rabbiting heart). Nervously she glanced over to where Sam slept…and continued to sleep, despite what Deanna had felt was a rather loud interruption. A murmur escaped the younger Winchester, something about ice-cream Deanna thought, and then…nothing. Dee let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding before glaring in the mirror at the angel in the backseat.

“Damn it, Cas, what did we talk about?” She hissed, keeping her tone just above a whisper so he could hear her irritation. Cas remained silent for a moment, his blue eyes clouding momentarily as he seemed suddenly deep in thought.

“I…was not supposed to…’just appear’ in the Impala?” He said, deep voice betraying his genuine attempt at a guess.

“Yeah, Cas, you’re not supposed to JUST APPEAR in the IMPALA. You uh, see the problem I have here?” Her tone, though still irritated, carried a hint of amusement as the angel huffed in the backseat. Despite the terrifying couple of moments that accompanied Cas’ sudden appearances, Dee couldn’t help the gentle wave of calm that washed over her. Slowly in the silence following her disgruntled outburst Deanna began to relax; shoulders rolling in an attempt to loosen the stress bottled in her slight frame, hands flexing and relaxing against the wheel.

“Yes. Yes, I do recall this conversation. I’m sorry, Deanna.” Dee chuckled, turning her attention back to the road.

“Sure, sure. What’re you doin’ here, Cas?” Castiel said nothing for some time, leaving Deanna to wonder if he’d left just as quickly as he’d shown up when suddenly he was running his hand through her hair. He lingered as he moved to the back of her head, skimming the short hair. For a moment Dee was paralyzed, eyes wide and flickering from the road to the rearview mirror as the angel in the back pressed against her skull with just enough pressure for Dee to feel his fingernails scraping along her skin. Her breath began to come in short bursts, inspired not out of confusion or fear but out of something…else entirely. She quickly became lost in the rhythm and moment, head inadvertently moving against Cas’ fingernails to prolong the contact. 

“Uh …Not that I mind…Cas…but what…are you doing?” She was thankful it was dark enough in the Impala for the blush creeping across her cheekbones to go unnoticed. She hoped the same could be said of her breathier than normal voice.

“I…saw you doing this. I wanted to know what it felt like. And you seemed to enjoy it when you were doing it.” Was she just imagining it, or was the angel in the backseat sounding a little rougher than usual? No, of course not…surely just her imagination. After a moment she finally managed a response she felt was witty enough.

“Yeah uh…sure… And WHY, exactly, do you care if I enjoy something or not?” The hand that had been lightly scratching its’ way across her skull paused in the path he had been tracing and Dee was embarrassed to admit that she had to swallow a noise of discontent. After a moment or so Cas’ fingers once again began to trace the same pattern against the back of her head. An added detour took his fingers, which were surprisingly warm, skimming down along her neck, raising goose bumps wherever they touched.

“I’m not entirely sure, Deanna. I just do.” His hand moved lower, dipping below the collar of her shirt to skim the skin along the top of her back. He lingered at a spot just to the right of her vertebra, pressing gently and causing Dee to hiss in pain, jerking violently away from his touch.

“No…” Cas murmured, hand moving to grip her shoulder, restraining her and pulling her back to her original position against the neck rest of the car seat. The pain was still fresh, remembering the wound’s origin even more painful. She winced, tilting her head away from his touch as he continued to press lightly against her wound. It had been the first time in a long time she’d felt so…damn helpless. Even being held in a neck lock a couple feet above the ground did not leave her as naked and vulnerable as she’d felt the that night, now almost ten days past. Held down, belly flat against an icy concrete floor, one ghoul digging into her back with her own knife while another helped keep her down. She’d screamed, of COURSE she’d screamed, but Sammy had been preoccupied, trying to fight off one of her own and having more trouble than she usually did. 

She still remembered the horrifying combination of sensations; flushed face forced into the icy cool of the concrete, the heat of her own blood dripping down her back, soaking first through the tattered remains of her shirt and then pooling against her sides and edging in to settle at the edges of her belly. She’d fought against their weight as she’d writhed on the floor, unable to ignore the almost ticklish feeling of her blood sliding down her back. And the sounds…The knife cutting into her flesh, slicing a chunk away, the ghoul ripping it from her back…it was a miracle she hadn’t bled out; some stupid stroke of luck that had kept her from going into shock. She was certain that, had Sam been kept occupied for any longer than the minute or so they had free access to her skin she… But that hadn’t happened. Sam had killed her adversary and managed to take on the two on Dee, receiving only some surface scratches and dings for her efforts. It was lucky, too, that Sam had more medical expertise than herself; Dee’s back had been bound and later, disinfected and stitched together as well as possible. The pain had been bad, yes, but the inability to do anything for almost a week had been worse. It hurt still, the edges still just scabbed over and her back still delicate against any sort of pressure to it. Even driving had been difficult; leaning just enough against the seat to be comfortable without igniting the flames of pain that seemed always to linger just out of sight, threatening to return whenever a careless move was made.

But rest, real rest, would have to wait and it had waited. She’d followed Sam from case to case, drugged up and doing what she could to save anyone and everyone she could.

“I’m sorry, Deanna.” Cas murmured, tracing the top of what would be the mother of all scars within a few weeks.

“Yeah well, shit happens. Just quit pokin’ at-” She gasped as the pressure from Cas’ fingers intensified, bringing first a sharp burning pain that spread into a wide cobweb of pain along her back…which eased into a cool feeling of relief, pain disappearing as fast as it had begun. She shuddered, a low moan escaping beyond her clenched teeth as Cas’ hand continued to press at her wound.

“Cas, what…?”

“I may not be capable of stopping your injuries but I can at least lessen your pain.” The pressure against her back disappeared then as his fingers, feeling even warmer against the cool relief still seeping into the skin of her back, began to trace a new pattern. Breathing harsher now than she’d like to be, Dee brought her left hand up and over her right shoulder, skimming along where the wound had been. Instead of the ridge of raised flesh she’d come to know in the past few days her fingers met a gently raised patch of skin. As though she’d had the wound for years instead of days. Only absently was she aware that she’d pulled the car over to the side of the road, noticing only when the tires began crunching along the gravel after a series of bumps alerted her to their new off-roading venture. She was entirely unprepared to feel Cas’ fingers slide back over to meet her own, entwining with hers as well as he could considering her awkward position. And for a few moments there was silence, broken only by Dee’s heavy yet controlled breathing and the soft breath from the angel in the backseat.

“Be careful, please.” His voice was closer than she remembered it being and when she tilted her head back she was stopped by a pair of deep, sea-blue eyes, Cas’ face so close their noses were almost touching. At this point, the Impala had nearly stopped. Deanna wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, simply returning the unblinking gaze the angel had directed at her.

“Uhh…sure…Cas.” Castiel nodded, seeming to accept Deanna’s acknowledgement of his request and when she blinked again he was gone.

“Jesus, Cas, what the hell…” She murmured as she signaled to no one and returned the Impala to the road. This, she decided very quickly, was not something she wished to discuss with Sam. As far as Dee was concerned, the last time she’d seen Cas was a couple weeks ago when he’d de-briefed them about Heaven’s current events. Gingerly she reached back over her shoulder, a shiver moving from head to toe as she recalled Cas’ hand on her back. Memories of times alone, the days that Sam had been gone, moments that had almost happened, threatened to overtake her thoughts and put a stop to all rational forward momentum. A harsh shake of her head pushed them back and away, preferring not to relive her embarrassment while she had other things on her mind.

 

(Approximately four hours later.)

There was a tickling sensation, just above the tip of her nose. The hunter was only vaguely aware that she was feeling anything at all and it was almost an after thought when her hand brushed against her nose in an attempt to dislodge it. She began to settle only to feel the same thing once more against her right cheek. Snuffling giggles reached Sam’s ears and, though unwilling, her eyes began to creak open-

Just in time to see Dee lowering a thread back down towards her face. Sam grunted and smacked Deanna hard enough to elicit a strangled ‘OOF’; Sam would have been lying if she’d said she hadn’t smirked a little. She groped around the side of the seat and, fingers finally alighting on the cool piece of metal set just to the side of her seat, she re-adjusted it so that she was sitting up. A quick physical inventory produced the typical aches and pains accompanied with sleeping in the Impala and, even more surprising, a feeling of refreshment she hadn’t been expecting.

“You crashed pretty hard there, Sammy. I was almost positive you weren’t gonna get up for anything.” Sam was surprised to hear the light tones of amusement in her sister’s voice. The seemingly constant strain between them seemed to have ebbed during their drive and though surprising it was nice. It was…comfortable. Familiar. Something she could slip back into like an old glove or a well-loved leather jacket. It gave her hope that, perhaps, with enough time…

“Yeah well…” She struggled to find something witty to keep the conversation going, only to discover that there was nothing there. Sam cleared her throat. “We’re uh… there, right? Astoria?” Dee nodded and Sam suddenly realized that they were stationary. The Impala’s engine was silent and the coolness of the car suggested that the heat had been off for some time. A pang of guilt rushed through the younger Winchester; had Dee reached their destination and then allowed Sam to sleep? Delayed waking her as long as possible? As though she’d been reading her mind, Deanna reached over and started the car.

“It was too early to try talking to anyone…Not even any decent coffee joints open yet!” A rough, jovial laugh and they were back on the road. Sam turned her head, gazing out the window as though indifferently scanning the landscape whilst attempting to control the sudden lump in her throat.

“You got any idea where we ought to start here, Sammy?” Deanna’s business tone brought Sam back from her thoughts and, with a shake of her head, she was back to focusing on the job.

“Honestly? I’m not too sure, Dee.” She frowned. “I’d say our best bet is to do a little bit of research; find out if missing person’s reports have been filed? We left pretty quick last night…The only thing I know for sure is that there are multiple people involved. From what I could hear, it seemed as though there were at least two or three other people in the uh…background. Not including whatever was there with them.” Deanna nodded, face set as they scoped out motels from the road.

“Sounds like a solid plan. Probably check out the police station…?” Sam nodded, rubbing her hand over her face. Having already made the drive, Sam couldn’t help but feel frustrated with herself. Since when did they rush out with no background information to a town they’ve never been to without contacting or consulting someone? It had been so soon, Sam silently argued as they pulled into Skyward Inn, and her mystery caller had sounded so…panicked, terrified, pained… In the end, urgency had overridden any sort of intelligence when it came to saving lives. Sam came back to herself just in time to follow Dee into their rented room (the rental having been taken care of by Dee while Sam had contemplated their current situation). After a brief bout of rock, paper, scissors Dee was sent off to find breakfast while Sam sat down at her computer to conduct a bit of research. 

Hours passed; by the time their bellies were aching for lunch the girls knew, relatively, what they were dealing with and where to start. Some five or six interviews later, dressed their best and flashing smiles bright enough and sweet enough to drive every man to the truth, the girls finally found themselves back in the Impala. Night was just beginning to fall, purples and oranges alighting the sky in a beautiful display that neither Winchester had the time to admire.

“So…you uh…sure that’s gonna work?” Dee was hardly able to keep the skepticism from her voice and, though Sam hated to admit it, it wasn’t entirely unjustified. She glanced down at the small, round-bottom flask she had cradled between her hands. Inside it was filled with a thick, dark green smoke; flashes of something bright broke through the constant swirling loops and whorls inside the bottle. She swallowed a few times before finally managing to speak.

“I dunno, Dee… I mean, I don’t think that demon could lie to us. And based off of what we’ve found so far? I don’t know about you but I’m not entirely comfortable just going into this with the intent to remove heads. Sure, vampire seems the best bet but…” She shrugged, allowing her sentence to drift away as the signs of civilized life melted away the further and further they drove. 

“And Bobby seemed all for it!” Dee snorted, her overly exaggerated eye-roll evident in the gentle tilting of her head.

“Yeah, because he was about as clueless as we are and twice as worried.”

“Well…yeah… I’m feeling like this is our best option, too.” The girls sighed nearly simultaneously, their conversation lapsing into momentary silence as they each contemplated what they were about to do. What they were about to face. Sure, it SOUNDED like vampire…but it also sounded like something they’d never dealt with before. Some new hybrid, perhaps? It was an unsettling thought, regardless. Continuously Sam returned to the breaking of that seal…Jake and Azazel...learning that Deanna was doomed and destined for Hell one short, terribly short, year later. She shifted her right hand off the flask and over to her knee where she gripped her leg just short of painfully. So much had happened, so many horrible things and events… And now here they were. Still attempting to hunt regularly while signs of the Apocalypse began showing their ugly faces all over the world. Sure, they both knew that killing one demon here, setting some ghosts to rest there, was doing little more than postponing the fate of all these people until the Apocalypse finally began…assuming there were unable to stop it at all. More than anything Sam could not help but return to Ruby; trusting Ruby had been her true downfall. Allowing herself to believe that a demon was not, for the first time in the history of demons, out for blood had not been the first time she’d blindly trusted someone but it would certainly be the last.

Fighting creatures both familiar and new, balancing the weight of the world on their shoulders and, oh yes, attempting to evade the angels who were jonesin’ for their meat suits. The thought was sickening. Overwhelming and depressing and, beyond all else, fuel for the constantly simmering rage hidden just beneath Sam’s calm, cool and collected façade.

“…’bout there.” Sam shook her head, trying to clear away the dark cobwebs of thought.

“We’re uh…there?”

“Yeah just about… you think you can handle this…?” Sam winced inwardly and scowled, gaze still focused outside. There was something so beautiful watching the world as it disappeared into the twilight of the approaching night. They would have an hour before the sun was fully descended and though this was not an ideal time to confront the enemy, their sources had led them to believe that the sooner the better. It could mean the difference of lives saved versus lives lost and that was a risk both girls knew they had to take.

“Just… Yeah. Yeah, Dee, I can. I just wish we’d gotten ahold of Cas, knowing whether or not this is Heaven related, would make me feel a lot better, ya know?” Their silence grew uncomfortable quickly and Sam could not help but wonder what Dee was hiding this time. The Impala’s lights flickered on, illuminating the rough dirt road before them and as they passed over the wooden bridge they’d been told about, Sam knew there were only a couple minutes away from the path they’d have to walk on foot. Not for the first time Sam wished she knew why Cas was ignoring them. Sure communication between them had been spotty the past couple months but the combination of Dee’s stilted silence and the complete lack of surety of their situation did nothing for her already unsettled nerves.

Before long they were gearing up, the flask stored in a makeshift bandolier against Sam’s hip for both safety and accessibility. They each grabbed a shotgun and a machete, tucking the latter into their belt-loops and doing once-overs on their guns. As prepared as they were, the Winchesters were left with little other option to set off down the path.

From the moment they’d entered the small clearing where the shack, which should more accurately been referred to as the most run-down cabin they’d ever experienced in their hunting memories, they’d known that someone had tipped off the bad guys. They’d experienced no one and nothing just outside the cabin but they’d felt rather than seen the eyes that were on them. The ambush had been expected but far more violent than they’d been prepared for. There’d been blood, and pain. Screaming and pain and death; it was as though they’d entered Hell the moment they’d stepped inside. The only good part had been that the demon they’d interrogated had been telling the truth. The creatures they fought moved and acted like vampires and yet they’d been faster, stronger than regular vamps. And it had been nearly impossible to behead them, as though the skin and muscle connecting their heads to their shoulders were made of stone.

They were separated right off the get-go, a group of three of the uber-vamps (as Sam was inclined to think of them as), all male, seemed to appear from nowhere and began driving the sisters apart in the cabin, one of them tackling Sam away from the entryway and into a small reading room to the right, and two of them circling Dee and pushing her away from Sam and up the stairs. Sam had about half a second to begin calling out for her sister before she was forced to begin the struggle for control with the uber-vamp, twisting and turning and using her forearm against the creature’s throat to keep it’s mouth at a distance. All the while she struggled to reach her machete, fingers slipping against the belt loop and against the blade, slicing her fingers open and making the struggle that much more difficult. The metallic tang of blood filled the already charged air and sent the vampire into a violent frenzy. Sam cried out as the creature tore into her arm with his teeth, wrenching and twisting and shaking himself with enough force to make Sam lose what little grip she’d still had on the creature. She screamed as his mouth released the grip on her arm and shifted down, lighting fast, to her throat, latching onto the side of her neck and tearing the skin as easily as if it were tissue paper.

Her scream turned into something like a bellow as that rage, her rage, exploded within her, nearly blurring her vision in its’ intensity. Unintelligible sounds of her anger continued to spew, forced out through gritted teeth, as she finally managed to grasp the hilt of her machete. She ripped it from the belt loop, tearing the fabric and ruining the loop in her haste to save herself. The pain was just beginning to fade and now her adrenaline was laced with fear as she realized she was losing too much blood too quickly. If she didn’t remove the creature she would die within a matter of minutes, if she would even last that long. With her fear now feeding her adrenaline she whipped the machete around and hacked into the creature’s neck, having forgotten about the flask in a moment or reflex. It paused for a moment, hissing and loosing some strangled epitaph before it dove back towards Sam’s neck.

“Oh no you DON’T you bastard!” Another grunt and the machete connected with the same wound she’d just inflicted. It took almost a full minute to destroy enough of the creature to force it away from her entirely and almost another full minute to disconnect fully his head from his shoulders. Sam was breathing heavily by the time she was done, left hand pressing down hard on her neck in an attempt to staunch the bleeding there even as tiny rivulets streamed down the same arm.

“DEE! DEANNA WHERE-“ A muffled scream was all she received in response followed by two rounds from Dee’s shotgun, the sound reverberating through the cabin. Sam moved towards the stairs, swaying slightly on her feet and was stopped by yet another creature, this one decidedly female. They froze, staring at each other, gauging each other. Trying to feel each other out in the couple of seconds before the brawl-

“SAMMY, SAMMY NOW!”

“I CAN’T EVEN SEE YOU, DEE!”

“JUST DO IT!!” Dee’s voice devolved into muffled grunts and curses aplenty; simultaneously the female lunged, screaming as Sam leapt to the side, landing on her side and jarring her shoulder hard enough to see stars. Before she had time to catch her breath she was scrambling for the flask, releasing the bit of leather holding it in place and ripping it from the holster. Just as the creature was regaining her footing Sam slammed the flask down on the floor beside her.

The uber-vamp’s hands closed around her neck, clawed hands leaving tiny pinpricks of barely broken skin behind. There was a bellow of anger, a scream of pain Sam later decided had DEFINITELY come from the vamp and most certainly NOT from herself, and then she was blind. Light and heat exploded around her, originating from the shattered flask. It enveloped everything in an explosion the likes of which neither Winchester had ever experienced. Sam had just long enough to ponder whether or not she would make it out of this and, assuming she did, if she’d suffer the mother of all sunburns before all rational thought was blurred and dampened by the roaring flash of light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. I had some curious tablet troubles and was unable to publish until now. So for those who are enjoying the story thus far, please enjoy chapter two.

Silence descended on the cabin in the wake of the explosion. For some time Sam heard nothing but her own breathing, harsh and loud in the sudden quiet. As her vision began to fade back in Sam pulled herself to her feet, hissing in pain as the brief but violent burst of adrenaline began to fade, leaving her arm throbbing and her neck stinging. Every step she took seemed to resonate through her wounds. Keeping herself upright was a feat in and of itself; making her way to the banister of the rickety staircase was something close to a miracle. Her eyes, cloudy and unfocused amidst the aftermath of the blast, drifted to where the uber-vamp had been only to see…nothing. No body, no fluids just…nothing. She squinted and as the room came into focus Sam couldn't help but laugh as her eyes traced the human shaped burn marks left in the floor. Whatever that demon had helped them create had done MORE than expected…which was almost as unsettling as it would have been if the mixture had just fizzled out.

"Sam…? Sammy I'm comin' down, you okay?" Sam opened her mouth to respond and had to clear her throat and force a few swallows.

"Yeah…Yeah Dee but I think I need a little help.” The sound of boots on the rotting wood of the steps reverberated down the staircase, rattling the bannister. Sam gazed up into the darkness with solid trepidation in he eyes. As Dee's boots entered Sam's vision, tromping down the stairs with the sense of authority only Deanna could muster, a wave of relief washed over Sam. Though Dee had more than her fair share of scrapes and bumps, and what looked like quite a shiner building over her eye and a limp that was more prominent as she took the last step off the staircase, she seemed ok. Sam flushed as her sister's eyes traveled quickly from the torn fabric of her forearm to the wound at her neck, concern plastering her face.

"Got the jump on me, Dee… She took me to the floor before I could get a shot off. Bastard's were stronger and faster than I expected…” She murmured, jaw tense and eyes narrowing; visual representations of the shame and frustration she felt. She’d never been injured so severely…at least, not when she was on the top of her game. Was she even ready for this shit? She tried to focus on the fact that they had stopped incalculable deaths at the hands of these monsters, horrific wounds or not.

“Jesus, Sammy, we gotta get you patched up before you pass out." Dee offered her shoulder (which Sam refused) and, moving at a comfortable pace for both the injured Sam and the limping Deanna, the Winchesters began weaving their way back to the Impala. Amidst their various aches and pains Sam became painfully aware of her hunger; what had been a dull, slow burn in the pit of her stomach a few hours prior had been stoked into a raging inferno, licking at the edges of her thoughts with enough savagery to overpower the physical pain of her wounds. She groaned, grasping at her stomach with her right hand and earning herself a gaze bordering on amused from her sister.

"You uh…okay there?"

"You think we could stop somewhere for food?" Dee sputtered, pausing in the path and whirling on her sister, shifting the beam of her flashlight to point directly in Sam's face.

"You're…hungry."

"Well I don't know if you remember but it's been like… a day since we've eaten." She responded, wincing at the too bright light in her eyes.

"We've gone longer, Sammy." That insufferable sense of amusement from her sister was nearly enough to send Sam into a dark place she preferred not to visit.

"Yeah, that may be but… I'm hungry. And I'm tired. And damn it if I don't feel like I'm just about to pass out though whether it's from hunger or blood loss…” Sam shrugged, wincing as the movement sent fresh waves of pain radiating through her neck. They reached the Impala and Sam hoped the conversation would be dropped. She was hoping that Dee wouldn’t ask if the smell of her own blood was causing an entirely different hunger to arise and she was hoping that with food…physical food…she could force it down. 

They paused for a moment just outside the Impala, silently thanking whatever force had helped them get through this, before they slid into their respective seats. Sam groaned, nausea now battling with her hunger and leaving her feeling sick. There was a curious, tingling sensation at the back of her head; a tickling itch that seemed to exacerbate her pain and intensify her craving.

"Come on, Dee, just…fast food, whatever, anything. I don't care. Something quick then back to the motel… You're gonna have to help me; I need stitches." It was Deanna's turn to groan as the engine roared to life, purring in the darkness and illuminating the rough trail they'd arrived on. 

"Yeah, yeah, Sammy. I know the drill.” Sam said nothing to her sister’s gentle reassurance; her eyes had fluttered closed while Dee had re-oriented the car.

Deanna glanced over once, eyes softening as she took in the prone form of her sleeping sister, before she sped off into the now silent night.

oOoOoOoOoo

“HEY, Sleeping Beauty, time to wake up. Come on, riiiiise and shine!” Her world was moving, shifting, swaying beneath her and now, suddenly, things had stilled. Eyes that ached rolled behind her lids as Samantha pulled herself from the seat her back had nearly fused to during the ride back to the motel. The world popped into blurry focus, continuing to dip and bob around her even as her body screamed that she was motionless. The ache, THAT ache, the insufferable, insatiable need for blood had exploded within her, a feeling so foreign and so alien that for a moment she was unable to breathe. The car reeked of fried chicken and blood, the smells combining to throw her already blood-addled brain through another loop.

“SAM, come ON, get the LEAD out; that wound ain’t gonna sew itself up. I got the chicken, just get yourself.” Sam managed something like a grunt and Dee retreated from the driver’s seat, slamming the door with her hip as she made her way to the motel door. Feeling the ache more prominently than ever, body hurting as though she’d gone ten rounds in a UFC ring, Sam pushed her way to her feet. Overall she wasn’t sure what was causing the most painful of her aches, the physical wounds or her desire for demon blood. It was only as she stood that Sam realized she couldn’t move her head from side to side. Groggy hands fluttered up, brushing along where her neck was only to encounter cloth. It took a few more seconds for her to realize that Dee had bundled up her wound as well as she could; probably using a spare T-shirt or something to help staunch the bleeding. She tugged experimentally at the cloth and winced as it pulled painfully at the still raw, open skin of her wound. Her stomach roiled, bile rising briefly in her throat. 

None of this, none of what had happened at the cabin, was normal. Her wound, her inattention…

Once the world stopped spinning Sam began the trek to the motel room. Though the door was about fifteen feet straight ahead from the car the journey seemed impossible. She lurched her way forward, feeling light and faint and altogether unpleasant before she managed to shuffle through the doorway and collapse on the bed nearest the door.

“Sammy? That you?” Her sister’s voice, muffled through the closed door of the bathroom.

“Y-Yeah, Dee. It’s me…” She groaned, loud enough to garner her sister’s attention. The bathroom flung open with enough force to slam against the wall leaving a dent they would never see.

“Sammy?”

“Dee! Dee, it’s…it’s okay… I’m just… I’m exhausted, and hungry and my everything aches.” She murmured, tilting her head just enough to bring her sister’s profile into view. A moment or two passed as Dee shifted a few things out of Sam’s view before plunking down beside her sister, nearly toppling the both of them as the bed dipped to meet Dee’s weight. She swore, readjusting herself.

“How ya feelin’, Sammy?”

“Better, I guess… Just patch me up, I don’t think I’m gonna last much longer.” A pause, then, “I mean sleeping. I’m just exhausted. It’s like I haven’t slept in a week.” The thought of eating, which had so propelled the younger Winchester not an hour before, had vanished from her mind, sleep overriding any and every human function her body could produce. Hunger? Pain? Not even an afterthought as tendrils of weariness threatened to drag her into sleep with each blink of her eye; it was almost as though the hunger had driven her to bed. A silent nod was all she received as Dee’s weight on the bed receded momentarily before resettling; sounds of rummaging and then a pressure at her neck.

“This uh… is probably gonna hurt.” Sam opened her mouth with the intention of loosing some sarcastic phrase just as Dee began removing the tattered remains of her shirt, ripping through the fabric up the middle with a knife. Before she had time to register that yes, that WAS her favorite shirt, Dee was peeling the blood-soaked, sweat-dampened fabric off. Sam tilted her body as well as she could to accommodate the procedure, hissing as it took some skin with it. It took less than half a minute before Deanna was gently lowering her body back down to the bed. Dee bundled up what remained of the shirt and pressed it firmly against Sam’s neck, keeping it in place with a nearby pillow while she picked up Sam’s arm.

“Wow, Dee, I didn’t know you cared.” Sam managed, even as the residual waves of pain began to fade. Overall, her wounds weren’t bad; having staunched the bleeding at her neck, she was no closer to bleeding out than she had been a few hours before this entire mess happened. She felt her mind beginning to wander as Dee began sterilizing her arm, moments of the ambush and proceeding fight flashing behind closed eyes as she attempted to analyze where she’d gone wrong. Not believing it a was a trap had been a mistake for sure …allowing the creature to take the advantageous top position…

“Well, let’s just hope I can do this in a straight line; your lack of help is making this whole thing pretty difficult.” Sam blinked, realizing she’d dozed off somewhere in the midst of her instant replay of that evening’s events. She managed to force her eyes open for long enough to watch as Dee tugged the thread tight and snipped the end, finishing off what normally would have been a painful procedure. Some aspect of this worried Sam; to have nodded off through the pain? Not even to stir when the needle first punctured the torn skin of her forearm? She sighed and made to shift herself into a seated position amidst Deanna’s verbalized objections.

“Come on, Sammy just doze back off, it’s fine. I’m just gonna wrap this up then disinfect and wrap your neck, okay?” Sam shook her head, ignoring the sensation of moving through a pool of Jell-O and once more forced her eyes to open.

“Gotta eat somethin’, Dee. I’m probably not going to wake up for a while and uh… I just wanna eat somethin’ first.” She winced at the withered sounds coming from where her own voice used to originate. It was now that Dee was beginning to look at her. REALLY look at her. Sam flushed and turned her face away, unable to meet her sister’s gaze. As her sister manipulated her body, Sam forced herself to acknowledge her desires and then to put them away, far away, in some distant dark corner of her mind. She’d come far in the short time they’d been reunited and it would take more than some vamp suckin’ her dry to make her return to the habit that had nearly destroyed their relationship.

Dee moved slowly, carefully, and it was more than apparent that she was doing everything in her power to keep the pain of this process at a minimum. Sammy was beginning to wonder how long it would take for her elder sister to notice that she wasn’t sleeping right. To classify her nightly occurrences as nightmares would be close, though certainly they were not just dreams. It was not every person who could claim that they received nearly constant, incessant, smoothly spoken lies and persuasions from Lucifer himself while they slept. Hopefully, tonight would be a reprieve. She winced as the shirt was peeled away from the still raw wound at her neck and Dee’s responding whistle confirmed that it was probably as bad as she’d thought it was.

“Christ, Sam, did you just let that thing have at you or somethin’? You even TRY to fight back?” Dee chuckled at her own joke, attempting to brighten the suddenly dark mood with a bit of light-hearted ribbing. Sam’s right hand clenched around the comforter of the bed, knuckles white as her fingernails bit through the fabric to dig into the skin of her palm.

“How bad is it, Dee?” A moment of silence, broken only by the sounds of rummaging as Deanna dug through the pack beside her.

“Well…it’s not the worst we’ve seen…”

“Yeah… Guess yours a week and a half ago takes the cake, huh?” Sam started, jerking forward and drawing more protests as Dee was pushed away in the process.

“Christ, Dee! I didn’t… Damn it, are you okay?” Sam felt sick, realizing how much attention she’d stolen from what was likely a momentous amount of pain Dee herself must have been dealing with.

“Uh…yeah…um, it’s.. uh…” Sam paused, hazel eyes flashing over Dee’s face, not quite registering the fact that her sister refused to meet her gaze. 

“Listen, Sammy I’m-…” She trailed off, seeming to weigh something in her mind as she prepared the antiseptic and wraps for Sam’s neck.

“I’m fine, Sam. I guess I’m just healing faster because of the uh…the treatments! You know, all those extra…binding…changing and…cleaning it…and…you know…” With a shrug she commenced the cleaning of Sam’s neck, fingers moving lightly, gently against the still oozing wound. Sam seemed to accept her comment as well as any over-exhausted, wounded warrior would and after a nod or two she leaned back against the headboard. Another couple of minutes passed, both sisters lost in their own thoughts before Sam was entirely patched up. She offered to re-bandage the wound on Dee’s back and to check for anything else but was waved off with a plate of fried chicken and what appeared to be some seriously wilting salad. Caring little for the stinging at her neck and the throbbing of her arm, she dug in. It took less than five minutes for the younger Winchester to clear her plate, wilted, questionable lettuce, soggy chicken and all. Though she worried for a moment that the food would not sit well in her stomach, she felt nothing more than full and in a vague sense of the word, content.

“It’s not like you to eat fast food without a fight.” Dee was grinning at her sister from the small table set up just beside the window, a second bucket open and half devoured before her. She’d just twisted the cap off her second beer and was looking just as comfortable as Sam did, still half-propped up against the headboard of the bed. For a moment, Sam smiled. So long as their phones remained silent, their dreams void of horrors and their room empty of angels, they had an honest to God’s chance of avoiding trouble for a few days. Which meant they might ACTUALLY recover their strength, have a little while to just…relax.

And as unlikely as this was, Sam couldn’t help but give it credence. Allow it to build into an idea that she could believe enough in to at least allow herself to loosen her ever-tightened muscles.

A yawn escaped her and she realized she’d nearly dozed off again. Dee laughed from her little corner of the hotel room, the sound rolling from her raspy tongue with a lightness that seemed to suggest she was feeling pretty good herself.

“Seriously, Sammy. Just go to sleep.” She stood and stretched, yawning widely and theatrically for her audience of one. 

“I’m gonna grab a shower then sleep myself. I paid in advance for two days, so we won’t be bothered with an early checkout in the morning.” Dee tossed her hand up in some vague dismissal as she sauntered into the bathroom and kicked the door shut behind her. Thinking that the suggestion was a good one, Samantha slid down into a more comfortable position and drifted almost instantly to sleep.

OoOoOoOoO

It wasn’t until the door was closed, body pressed against the faux wood of the door, that Deanna allowed her mask to slip. Only a little. Enough to reveal the disturbing myriad of emotions hidden beneath its’ surface. Frustration, borderline disgust, anger… All coagulating to form a creature whose face Dee couldn’t recognize. Something akin to a snarl twisted her lips into a horror show. Dee pushed away from the wall and stalked the two steps over to the sink where she’d left their bag of toiletries. With a sigh that spoke volumes she dug through the bag until she produced her toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner. As she prepared her toothbrush her eyes flickered up from the dirty white of the sink basin to the mirror, yellowed with age and cigarette smoke and covered in enough smudges to violently distort her image.

Huffing, damp toothbrush held in her right hand, Dee used her shirtsleeve to rub away as much of the grime on the mirror as was physically possible.

Her haggard, exhausted, sitting-on-the-edge-of-some-sort-of-break-down face appeared, blue green eyes staring back at her own reflecting all of the horrid emotions she was feeling. Almost instantly she regretted her decision to clear the mirror and yet, Dee could no more stop analyzing each and every flaw than she could stop breathing. Skin too pale, hair ragged and sticking up unbecomingly in every which direction. Dark, heavy circles around her eyes completed the look, eyes dull and filled with each and every unspoken thing she held in her mind. A black eye was well on its’ way to developing, a round circle of dark purple beginning to flower out from the center of her left eye, blossoming into a light blue around the socket. Gently pressing the pad of her finger on her eye caused the aching to intensify; this would probably be one of the worst black eyes she’d ever had. Shifting her weight from foot to foot confirmed that she had, at the very least, bruised her entire left leg and had likely popped her kneecap out of place. That she could stand on the leg was more than enough for her. Having gone through the checklist she returned to her face; swallowing past the lump in her throat gave way from pity to anger. 

With a silent snarl she reached out and flung the mirrored cabinet open, removing her image and revealing a bare set of shelves. Unnecessary, pointless motions that solved nothing and only made her feel foolish. She left the cabinet door open, the mirror facing away from the door opposite the sink and towards the shower. She brushed her teeth in solemn moodiness, frustrated with her childish actions and irritated that even the act of brushing her teeth brought forth that dull ache in her face. Pretending that nothing was wrong between her and Sam… that Sam hadn’t spent a week locked up in a safe room to detox…that they hadn’t separated because Sam just couldn’t handle it, was starting to wear on her. What made it all that much worse was the knowledge that she’d been fine on her own… no… she’d been better than fine alone, damn near great on her own as a matter of fact. Having Cas around had helped, that much was sure.

Her lips curled into a smile which could only be described as devious; oh yes, and she supposed Cas was another problem as well. Her grin widened into a look that was almost sheepish as she contemplated her time with the angel. Inappropriate comments and slightly drunken passes aside, it had been one hell of a week.

With her shampoo and conditioner waiting in the shower she set about stripping, peeling her shirt off and over her head to reveal a body toned and scarred through her years as a hunter. She turned, angling herself in front of the cabinet’s mirror to get a better view of her back. Already dark, ugly bruises were blooming across her skin, evidence of their encounter with the creatures in the woods. Though she’d known just off of touch alone that the most gruesome of her wounds had been…healed, for lack of a less religious-sounding word, she’d had the urge to see it herself. To see what she’d assumed would be a horrendous mass of scar tissue across nearly the entire length of her back, her wound healed now into something that would no longer cause her pain.

She was entirely surprised to see a scar so old it was almost invisible, pale and entirely pain free. She stood there for a long while, eyes wide and reflecting back at her in the mirror. Her left hand fluttered up, coming to rest on her right shoulder, fingers gently brushing the freshly knit skin-

And she was back in the car; Cas’ surprisingly warm fingers tracing her skin along the edge of her neckline, dipping just below the collar of her shirt to press against her wound… The way his fingers had twined together with hers. How close his face had been…

“What are you thinking about, Deanna?” Dee loosed a strangled cry as she whirled around to face the small space between the shower and the wall. Simultaneously she grabbed a towel and her gun, both of which had been draped over and dropped into the sink. For several seconds she stood there, eyes wide, heart racing even as her hand remained steady, outstretched with her weapon pointed directly at Cas’ face. She was unsure whether she was more displeased or furious as a blush snaked its’ way up through her neck, lighting her cheeks aflame.

“Cas.”

“Yes, Deanna?”

“…We’ve talked about this, too, remember? BATHROOM EQUALS PRIVACY; P-R-I-V-” Frantic pounding at the door caused her to jump, whirling and dropping her towel as she aimed her weapon at the locked door of the bathroom.

“Dee? DEE?! What’s going on in there, are you okay, answer me!” Her sister’s frantic cries and incessant pounding on the door were oddly sweet to the elder Winchester. Dee lowered her firearm, flicking the safety on and removing the chambered round and covering her face with her hand, wondering how the evening had gone from the prospect of a quiet shower before bed to some odd sort half-naked stand-off at Motel 59.

“Uh no, NO, Sam, I’m fine!” She managed, clearing her throat once or twice before the words would flow. 

“I’m alright! Just a uh…” She glanced at Cas, mixed feelings dancing her eyes as she continued. “Just saw something, a bug I think. In the shower! Yeah, I’m just tired is all, Sam.” Silence on the other side of the door. 

“It’s fine; I’M fine. You can go back to sleep.” Dee remained tense, half naked and ready to jump should Sam attempt to break the door down or should Cas decide to open his mouth. Dee was aware that it was silly and unnecessary to keep Cas hidden. And yet, there seemed to be no other alternative. It was imperative that Sam not know that Cas was invading her privacy. HER privacy; somehow this designation seemed important.

“Okay, Dee… Just uh… call…if you need something…” Quiet shuffling; another minute or two and Dee was fairly certain that Sam had walked away. She waited, however, until she heard the soft creaking of the springs on the worn mattress signifying Samantha’s return to the bed before she rounded on Cas.

“Are you SERIOUS right now?!” She hissed, gesturing to the door and then to Cas himself before silently stamping her feet against the floor; Cas cocked his head to the side, nothing aside from curiosity adorning his features.

“Deanna, is there a reason you’re missing your shirt?” Dee froze, horror dawning across her face as she realized she was wearing only her bra and a pair of ripped up jeans (courtesy of the uber vamps). Slowly, moving with enough stress in her body to cause Cas to take a step back against the wall adjacent to the shower, she rounded on him.

“Cas. If you value that human meat-suit of yours in ANY way… you will turn away from me. And you will say NOTHING MORE about my lack of clothing. Yes, just like that, AWAY FROM ME.” She hissed, crossing her arms in a clear show of anger. For a moment he stared at her, eyebrows knit together in the way they always did when he didn’t quite understand something. After about half a minute they switched places, Dee facing away from him while he took over her spot next to the sink. She sighed, rolling her shoulders as she realized that the angel intended to stay.

“PLEASE tell me this isn’t about business; I’m so exhausted I’m about to drop.” She was entirely oblivious to the fact that, due to her earlier frustrations with her exhausted appearance, Cas was now facing the mirror that was offering a complete view of Dee stripping. She unzipped her pants and proceeded to shimmy free of them, hips swaying as she moved. She stood there for a moment clad only in a simple pair of black cotton panties and a black bra, reaching her arms over her head to stretch away the stiffness before turning the shower on. Steam began to build in the bathroom as the water reached just short of scalding.

“You just gonna stand there Cas or you gonna answer my question? And anyway, how’d you find me?” She continued to undress as she spoke, peeling her bra and panties off until she stood there naked, turning just enough to offer a perfect side view of herself.

“Come to think of it, how’d you find me earlier? In the Impala?” She slipped into the shower, shuddering with delight as the hot water struck her skin.

“Cas? Cas are you still there?” She peeled aside the curtain, gazing out to see Cas standing where he’d been before, staring at her face with a look she wasn’t quite able to decipher. “You uh…you okay there?” More silence… He cleared his throat, shuffling his feet in a series of actions entirely un-angelic.

“No. No, I uh… I just wanted…” He trailed off, staring at Deanna with a strange look as the water rolled over her face and dripped to the mat below. She shrugged and returned to her shower. His ‘no’ had been enough to satisfy that nervous twitch she’d felt the moment she’d laid eyes on the angel. She assumed, when more than a minute of silent counting had gone by, that he’d left just as quickly as he’d arrived. This left her with the now to enjoy. And the now was a steaming hot shower, delicious smelling shampoo and the altogether soothing sensation of having nothing to worry about. Yes, the water pressure was weak. Yes, she knew that she should have considered sandals before stepping foot into the shower she was now luxuriating in. She refused to allow Lucifer’s imminent uprising and Michael’s grab for her body to ruin her quiet. So rare were they now, these moments of peace. She took her time in the shower, running her fingers through her short locks, massaging her scalp and rubbing herself down with the suds from the shampoo. It was not peace, but it WAS peaceful.

She prolonged her shower until the water began to cool. With a sigh Dee shut the water off and threw open the curtain to the shower, intending to dress quickly and head to bed-

Only to find that Cas was still there.

Dee froze, staring at the motionless angel until a breeze alerted her to the fact that she was still naked. She nearly dove for her towel, all the while her jaw worked as she struggled to put her current emotions into words.

“Any uh… PARTICULAR REASON YOU’RE STILL JUST STANDING THERE.” She hissed, wrapping the towel around herself. She stepped from the shower onto the slightly sodden bathroom mat, gaze flicking down for a split second. Her mouth opened, some angry smart ass remark floating at the edge of her lips as her gaze slipped back up-

To find that Cas was now a hairsbreadth away, deep blue eyes boring into her with enough emotion swirling around in them to steal her breath away. She froze, body taking over as it had in the Impala, bringing her natural instincts (to jump away, to lash out, to do anything to get herself out of this situation) to heel as she froze where she stood. Thoughts of the month prior danced through her mind before she shut them down.

“Cas… Are you…okay?” She murmured, barely breaking the silence and maintaining eye contact as she spoke, searching his gaze for something other than the indecision she seemed to see shining in his eyes. What happened next seemed to be a blur; one moment Dee was stabilizing herself outside of the poor excuse for a shower and the next she was pressed against the wall, towel held in place only by her hands. Tendrils of her hair, still dripping wet, clung to her neck and face, disheveled and pushed back from her forehead through the process of showering.

“Cas...This is uh… more than a little bit of an invasion of my… personal space.” She breathed, air catching in her lungs, unable to tear her gaze away from the angel in front of her. It would have been a lie to say she wasn’t doing everything in her power to keep her hands to herself; to not reach out, to not run her fingers across his stubbled cheeks and through his messy hair. He remained where he stood, arms held out on either side of her head, trapping her in place. His eyebrows knit together and lit a flame within Dee’s body and it was all she could do to keep herself from launching herself at the trench coat clad angel before her. 

“We have…things… we need to talk about, Deanna.” His voice offered no room for objection, the rough gravely pitch a direct and rapid line to her desire. Heat flooded her face as Dee attempted to keep herself still. Before she could formulate some sort of response his head bobbed down towards her neck, nose skimming the sensitive skin between her shoulders and the base of her neck. She moaned low in her throat, the sound so soft she wasn’t even sure she’d made it as her hands clenched around the still damp towel wrapped around her body. Her body had entered a state of hypersensitivity and she felt his every move; the stubble brushing against her collarbone, breath he didn’t need tickling across her shoulder…And his lips, soft and firm as they skimmed along her skin. It was all too much.

“I hate to break it to you, Cas, but this isn’t the way we humans ‘talk’ about things.” Her attempts at bravado and sarcasm failed, drifting away as her body cooled beneath the beads of water still clinging to her skin after the shower. He shifted forward, forearms pressed against the wall and bringing himself closer, pressing his body against her own as he continued to move at her neck. Dee could do nothing more than remain where she was, biting her tongue to keep from speaking once more, to keep her groans to herself as he moved gently against her body.

“Yes, I know that what you say is true.” He murmured against her skin, sending an entirely new set of tingles and shivers dancing through her body. “But I don’t have time to have a conversation. I have to leave.”

Vaguely Deanna heard herself making little noises of contentment as his arms moved from the wall to her arms, thumbs rubbing circles into her skin. Gently his left hand came up to rest on her cheek, thumb gently brushing away the pains of her black eye. His actions, though they seemed sure, were laced with hesitation. His body moved awkwardly against hers, as though he were attempting to simply FEEL his way through their current interaction.

This revelation did little more than to stoke the already roaring fire within the elder Winchester.

“I wanted to be sure you were okay.” And with that, the angel was gone; leaving Deanna bereft and so bewildered she couldn’t seem to reconcile herself. Slowly, attempting to ignore the way her body seemed to have become a foreign entity, she reached for her clean undergarments and extra-large button up dress-shirt she’d bought some years back, dressing with the pains of a toddler new to his body might be familiar with. Her actions were robotic, mind otherwise displaced and in a daze.

A few minutes later, dressed and drying her hair with her towel, Dee exited the bathroom, flicking the lights off behind her and leaving the door open. Moving silently she slid silently past the bed nearest the bathroom (which now contained a sleeping Sam) and to the one nearest the door. The bed creaked as she settled herself down on it, towel still wrapped around her neck. By the time she’d curled up beneath the blankets her thoughts of the bathroom had been pushed to the back burner, the desire for a restful night’s sleep so strong within her that it took a momentous amount of effort to keep her eyes open. Moments after her head hit the pillow she was out, drifting steadily into a deep sleep.

 

OoOoOoOoOoO

“You’re just…PROLONGING the inevitable, you must realize that by now.”

“No, I’m just…you know…trying to stop the apocalypse! Now scurry off to your spooky brimstone depths and let me get back to my deep, dream-less sleep, alright?” Sam hated the echo when she was caught in these dreams; it was like being in a large, empty room where every word spoken aloud was reverberated and thrown back at her. It was as though she were shouting in her own ear.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…”

“My name is Samantha, Lucifer.”

“SAMMY, Sammy, SAMMY, don’t you SEE?”

“See what, exactly?”

“We’re just…trapped in this waltz, aren’t we? I just about BEG for you location, you deny me, I send out signs of where I am… and you refuse to meet with me. You REFUSE to say yes. It just…boggles the mind. Especially considering that you were, you know, made me for me and all.” For perhaps the thousandth time Sam was thankful for Cas’ protective preventative measures. The runes carved into their ribs prevented any of the angels from finding either of them. These dreams, these…repetitive, irritating dreams that Lucifer continued to send, implant, whatever he was doing to her mind were becoming tiresome. Still unsure how she’d gained as much control over her sleep as she had, Sam had reached the point where she could force herself awake if things started getting bad. Lucifer, having determined that this was doing nothing more than pushing her to lack of sleep and distracting him from apocalyptic plans, had backed off for a few days. She’d been hoping he’d have more important things to do, yet…

Here they were.

“Yeah, and it’s not like any of that is going to change. How about you just do me a favor… and uh… piss off? You know, go away? Make like a banana and split?” The devil, housed within the body of Nick and appearing much more put together than the last time she had seen him, snickered behind a free hand.

“Make like a- I think I like that one, Sammy.” Sam’s jaw ticked as Dee’s nic name for her slithered free from between the Devil’s lips.

“Lucifer, get OUT of my dreams. You’ve been pestering me for two weeks now and I’d like to get back to my regularly scheduled programming. You can’t HURT me; you’ve tried and you CAN’T. You can’t get to me; you can’t get to EITHER of us… So how about you just…give it up.” Lucifer’s eyes, icy and bright, glared at her from Nick’s face and then he was gone. Around her the fog that always seemed to indicate Lucifer’s arrival and projection into her mind began to disperse, leaving her internal world dark. She remained aware of her body for only a moment or two before the feeling of being corporeal faded. 

The darkness began to shift, twisting and whirling as a scene, a memory, began to solidify. The world inside her mind took on shape and became as real as the moment it had occurred: Deanna and Sam had been stuck in one of many motels between monsters, she remembered. Dee had been channel surfing, Sam sifting through their files on her laptop. They’d been enjoying the peace, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before Cas reached out to them. They’d been on the trail of a couple of ghouls in the area (it had been a day or two before their showdown at the warehouse), but the trail had gone cold and they’d been left without leads. While things in Heaven hadn’t calmed down, Cas was doing what he could to help find the nasty creatures causing such mischief. Whilst lying there one of Dee’s multiple phones had begun to ring.

“Cas…? Cas are you…on a cell phone?” Dee waved her over from the motel’s table and from her open laptop, curiosity etched onto her features. She could all but see Cas on the other line as Dee switched the phone to speaker and within seconds she could not help but grin.

“Yes, Deanna. Where are you?” His voice, laced with the type of irritation only he managed to perfect, crackled across the bad connection.

“We’re in a motel.”

“…This isn’t funny, Deanna, I need a specific location.”

“To uh…do WHAT exactly?”

“To come to you. I can’t find you unless you tell me where you are.”

“Now…why would I want you to do that again?” Sam had shared the wide grin and silent snickers Dee was offering up, both of them beyond amused as Cas’ murmured frustrations echoed over the phone’s line. Though Cas wasn’t quite Sam’s type, she couldn’t deny that his often naïve responses had a certain…something about them that she couldn’t help but be attracted to-

“Are you KIDDING me? Are you SERIOUS right now?” Sam jerked away from the bed, her memory frozen where she’d been before the interruption. “Do you SERIOUSLY think that guy’s ATTRACTIVE?” Lucifer’s tone suggested jealousy but Sam knew better, and as she rounded on the Devil she could do nothing more than grimace.

“NOW I think it’s time you LEFT.” An over-exaggerated sigh accompanying an equally over-exaggerated shoulder droop from the Morningstar was enough for Sam to screw her imaginary eyes shut, dispelling Lucifer as she jogged herself awake from her dream.

For a moment she remained motionless, listening to the sounds of her own gentle breathing in the dark of the motel room. She took a moment to reorient herself onto her side, left leg drawn up into an upside-down V. Her right arm was tucked beneath her pillow, left flung over her chest. In the silence she heard the signs of distress. Stressed, whining noises; the telltale sounds of tossing and turning… Dee was having a nightmare.

With this realization Sam was fully awake, shifting herself up as quietly as was possible. She guessed she had approximately two minutes to ease Dee from whatever nightmare she was having before it became a full-blown horror show. If the only good she could do her sister was to brush away the nightmarish monsters of her sleep then by God she would.

Sam slipped from her bed and knelt silently beside Dee. She’d learned after some trial and error attempts how best to rouse Dee just enough from sleep for her nightmares to end. It was important to care for her sister without her sister knowing. Careful not to shift the bed in any way, she leaned over, hovering just above Dee’s head and began to brush her hair back from her face. The movements were gentle enough to be noticed on just the right level of Dee’s subconscious yet not quite enough to rouse her from sleep. Almost instantly Dee began to calm, her breathing (which had been rapid and near the point of hyperventilation) slowed to a series of panicked bursts of air.

“Why are you doing that?” It took literally all of Sam’s strength to stifle her yelp and keep her body in check. She whipped her head around, gaze alighting on their late-night intruder. Rather than speak she quietly hissed for silence. The sounds had started up again and Dee was beginning to shift in her sleep. Sam turned back to Dee and resumed the gentle brushing of Dee’s hair. When her sister’s restlessness did not ease as quickly as it should have, Sam leaned over and began to murmur. The words were nonsense, the tone far more important than the words themselves as she talked Deanna down.

A few moments passed and Dee began to calm once more; another minute or two and it appeared that Deanna had returned to a deep sleep. Once Sam was sure Dee wasn’t going to return to her nightmare world, she stood, careful not to apply any pressure to the bed. She caught Cas’ eyes and jerked her head towards the bathroom.

Once in the bathroom, Sam shut the door as quietly as possible and flicked the switch on the wall, illuminating the grungy room with an even grungier light.

“What the hell, Cas!” Sam hissed. “You can’t just pop in at all hours of the night and day; you KNOW that!” A thought clicked in her mind and her tone went from frustrated anger to curious suspicion. “And how the hell’d you even FIND us? Aren’t you, ya know, unable to do that unless we tell you our exact location?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” He appeared distracted, showing only his profile to Sam as though he had one ear cocked and listening to the room outside of the bathroom.

“What?”

“I asked you what you were doing.” Sam forced down the millions of sarcastic and rude responses that jumped to her mind, taking a moment to reorient before responding.

“I was…helping Deanna, Cas.” He squinted and tilted his head much like a puppy, indicating he did not understand. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I answered your question, now answer AT LEAST one of mine.” For a moment the angel stood there, head still tilted towards the bedroom, eyes squinting like he always did when attempting to discern or understand something. As the seconds crawled past and Sam’s question hung unanswered in the air, she became more and more agitated. Hips cocked to the side, Sam crossed her arms.

“Cas it’s like… three in the morning and I am EXHAUSTED; if you don’t need anything and you don’t feel like answering ANY of my questions then just-“

“I was…worried about Deanna.” Sam stared, mouth parting in confusion as she took in Cas’ reluctance to meet her gaze.

“You were…worried about… Dee…” She repeated, nodding as she spoke. A sigh slipped past barely parted lips as the realization of just how tired she was hit her. She’d guessed at the sparks between them, sure; seen little signs here and there that hinted at something more. Sam realized she was far too tired to really be bothered. Initial feelings of jealousy were swept away as easily as they’d come before she’d even had the time to analyze them. She could SAY she thought she was happy; Sam could say she was jealous or upset that Dee hadn’t talked to her… But overall? Samantha Winchester just didn’t care. And she especially didn’t care at three-something in the morning.

“Well that’s just…so darn sweet of ya, Cas. Now… assuming Lucifer isn’t attempting anything particularly apocalyptic right this second, I’m just going to go back to bed so how about you just, you know, flutter away or whatever?”

“Is she…”

“She’s FINE, Cas. Now…just…go away.” A blink and the angel was gone. Sam stumbled to the bathroom sink where she swished some mouthwash in lieu of brushing her teeth and washed the remaining vestiges of dirt and grime from her face. Unlike her sister she avoided her reflection, knowing that seeing her skin devoid of color, hair a-tangle and bruises abound would do little more than send her into a spiral of moping self-hatred. She paused, both hands stabilized against the sink, propping herself up as she stared down into nothing. Cas, Dee, Lucifer… Sam wasn’t sure she had enough room in her mind for herself any longer.

Once her face was dried she exited the bathroom, turning off the light and closing the door silently behind her. Amidst Dee’s now consistent, gentle breathing Sam tiptoed her way across the room and over to the AC unit. The room wasn’t extraordinarily hot and was in fact relatively comfortable at the moment. But both sisters had a habit of tossing and turning and overheating in the night, both slept better in a cold room with heavy blankets, and both had grown accustomed to the often loud, steady hum that accompanied motel air conditioners.

She turned the knob on the unit, finding comfort in the audible click and subsequent whir as it started up and promptly spewed a cloud of dust into her face. Sam gagged silently, comically, and waited until the air chilled before settling back into her bed. Sam tugged back the covers, caring little for the horrible stories and truths behind about motel beds and promising herself a hot shower in the morning.

She settled beneath the sheets, still cool but warming as her body heat filled the tiny space; beyond the blankets, the air was cooling, the AC doing its job. Slowly Sam’s eyes began to flutter, a weight heavier than they’d been in days settling over her lids. For the first time in over a week, Sam drifted into a dreamless sleep.

OoOoOoOoO

“SAAAAMMMYYYY WAKE UP!”

The fact that Dee was awake first and the smells of breakfast were well on their way to filling the room seemed to indicate that Dee was trying to patch things up in her own little way. Sam, however, clung to the covers and remained buried beneath her pillow, blocking out the sound of the TV and the bustle about the room as well as she could.

She’d begun drifting off again when the blankets were yanked down to her waist.

“Time to get up, Saaaaaammy! It’s almost 10:30.” 

“Yeah and I…I thought we had until tomorrow…before we had to check…out…” Sam managed, burrowing once more beneath her pillow in a haphazard attempt to block out the overhead light.

“Well yeah but-,”

“But it is important that we discuss something.” Sam groaned, clutching the pillow around her head, curling her legs and body into a ball in the center of the bed.

“Are you serious right now? What is the angel doing here?” Even muffled, Sam’s voice radiated her desire to remain in bed and her even stronger desire to avoid whatever it was that Cas wished to discuss. Quiet whispers passed between her sister and Cas, fervent and argumentative. Inwardly she sighed; that same sense of world-weariness began to descend, pressing heavily down upon her. Just as she was beginning to wonder if she could sink into the bed and somehow end up on a tropical beach far from Cas and whatever news he had brought, the bed dipped behind her and she was aware of her sister leaning over her.

“Come onnnn Sammmyyyy… I got you…some..uh…” She paused, bed creaking with her movement. “I got you a parfait, I think? With the… yogurt and…fruit and…! I got you tea, too! Iced green tea with just a DASH of lemon, right?” Silence followed Dee’s attempt to pull Sam from bed as Sam considered whether or not the parfait was worth it. She sighed before slowly, slowly withdrawing her head from the pillow. Samantha squinted her eyes against the sudden change in light, glaring at Dee’s hovering face.

“Just get me that parfait.” Dee’s face split into a grin and her response came in the form of the springs creaking as she leapt from the bed and made her way to the table where the food had been set. Sam resisted the strong and sudden desire to sigh or groan or…some unbecoming combination of the two as she pulled herself into a sitting position. She could not help but stare in confusion at Cas who was, in turn, staring curiously at her.

“Uh… Cas…why are you staring at me?”

“I did not know that your hair could do any of what it is currently doing.” Dee snorted from somewhere behind the angel as Samantha reached up and groped at her hair for a moment or two.

“On second thought, hold the parfait…” She grumbled, yanking herself up and out of bed and stomping dizzily to the bathroom. Like every other day in their lives, like every other emergency, every other threat of death and destruction… Sam knew they would wait. She took only as long as was necessary to scrub every last inch of her mouth with her toothbrush before turning to the shower. Keeping her bending at a minimum she started the water and stripped quickly, wincing and breath hitching as she pulled her shirt over her head and removed her pants. As she waited for the water to heat she ran her fingers over the bandages on her forearm and then her neck, touching the spots gingerly with the fingers of her uninjured hand. Absently she tossed her shower essentials in and climbed in after them.

Both of her wounds were stiff. The pain in her neck far outweighed her arm, which felt only bruised. Her neck stung and ached when she attempted to do more than turn her head from side to side. Though her inner nurse was warning her of the serious disadvantages of getting her dressings wet, the urge to bathe was far stronger.

Twenty minutes later she was clean and dry. She’d removed her bandages shortly after exiting the shower, and had grimaced as the water flushed her wounds; the creature had less tried to drain her of blood and more attempted to tear through her throat. She continued to meditate on this idea as she dried herself off, wrapping the towel around her as she exited the bathroom.

For a few seconds she thought herself alone until she saw movement in Dee’s bed. She edged around the bed nearest the bathroom and threw her duffel up onto the mattress, scrounging through it for only a moment or two before deciding on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved button up maroon shirt, complete with a collar and cuffs at the wrists. It was just as she was buttoning the cuffs that Dee sat up, blearily staring at her from beneath the covers.

“Where’d Cas run off to?”

“Uh… Think he was called back to Heaven?” Dee shrugged as she rubbed the remnants of sleep from her eyes with the palm of her hands. Sam nodded, silent as she gathered her things and shoved them unceremoniously into her own duffel.

“Packing?” Sam snorted, rolling her eyes with as much emphasis as she could muster.

“Why wouldn’t I? I mean, if Cas showed up…” The implication of his arrival could only mean one thing and Sam did not have it in her to pretend they would get their second night of rest.

“Yeah… I know, Sammy.” Deanna yawned at her as she followed suit and began packing her own belongings.

“But it’s not that big of a deal, I promise. Rumors, really. Just rumors. Nothing rock solid yet, ya know?” Sammy nodded, paying only the vaguest of attention to her sister’s attempts to reassure her; she was pretty sure Cas had told them that there were only “rumors” of multiple ghouls at the warehouse. Inwardly she winced, realizing how much anger she still held over the warehouse incident. It wasn’t his fault, not really. They should have scouted the location first, gotten the proverbial higher ground before charging in, half-cocked and stupid as hell.

“Speak of the devil!” Dee crowed, laughing out loud in that way she’d started whenever Cas was around, loud and raucous and yet somehow sweet and natural all at the same time. Samantha straightened, hands against her lower back in a gentle aid to her posture as she pulled herself into a standing position.

A quick glance provided her with a view of him kneeling in front of the bed Dee still sat in, both speaking in hushed tones. Sam dropped in the chair next to the small table and rummaged through the bags of food still sitting unattended on the table’s top until she found her parfait buried at the bottom of the only slightly soggy bag. Discovering that the yogurt was strawberry only eased the ache slightly.

“I guess angel boy here’s been hearing some strange rumors coming from Devil’s Lake.”

“North…Dakota?” Sam said, face twisting into doubtful confusion. Dee flopped into the chair across from her own and snagged the remaining breakfast sandwich from the bag, nodding all the while.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Dee swallowed her bite and continued. “Anyway, sounds like…. What did you say, Cas?”

“I have received accounts of something like a poisonous, parasitic creature polluting the lake. I’ve never seen one on this plane of existence. As far as I can remember, the last time I encountered one was in Hell.” At this Sam perked up.

“Do you think it’s something new on the Lucifer front?” Dee shrugged, a movement that Cas seemed to watch before attempting to mimic, the motion jerky and awkward on the angel.

“Dunno, Sammy. But I think it’s worth checking out. I did a little research while you were in the shower; I left the pages up for you to check out. It’s like the season of comas over there; all of the victims were found near the lake. I figure whatever it is likes to stick close to the water?” She finished her sandwich and crumbled all the garbage together.

“I’m down; let’s head out.”

OoOoOoOoO

With breakfast done, the sun now set firmly in the sky and the angel gone back to whatever current emergency demanded his attention, the Winchesters packed up and shipped out. With approximately fourteen hours of driving ahead of them, the girls had flipped coins and Sam took the passenger seat, warning Dee that she hadn’t slept well. Dee had waved her off with an eye roll. The elder Winchester rummaged around in the glove compartment for a moment, popped an old Metallica tape into the deck and promptly began their drive. The words filled the empty space between them and eased their awkward tension. Many a time Sam started to say something only to cut herself off with a headshake to stare quietly out the window. Though it seemed Sam wished to speak Dee did not push. 

It did not take long for the tendrils of sleep to drag her down into a doze. The younger Winchester had at some point removed her shoes and curled up on the seat, head resting against the reclined headrest and was looking altogether quite comfortable to the amazement of Deanna. Dee felt more rested than she had in days; the exhausting uber-vamp fight and Castiel’s shower surprise had resulted in…surprisingly delightful dreams. She could not help the faint and altogether dreamy smile that curled her lips into a look of delight. Allowing herself to be distracted, she quietly hummed along to her music as the landscape rolled past the windows. Overall it was peaceful. A quick glance at the silently dozing Sam relaxing against her just reclined seat, and Deanna Winchester allowed the miles to disappear beneath the Impala’s tires.

Within the youngest Winchester’s snoozing mind, however, was perhaps the polar opposite of all things tranquil and calm. Though her body appeared restless and at east, her dreams were anything but.

“I swear to all that is holy in this world, LUCI, if you don’t get out RIGHT NOW-“

“Awww, you’ll what? Punch yourself in the face?” The Devil, still wearing Nick even in her dreams, frowned. “Wait on second thought, keep that pretty face of yours intact for me, would you? Can’t have us looking anything less than fabulous, now can we?” Sam resisted the urge to snarl; Lucifer’s continued references to both herself and him as a single unit were nearly as infuriating as his constant use of Dee’s favored childhood name. What seemed to make the whole thing significantly worse was that he knew what he was doing and continued to smile that little half-smile of his.

“I’m sure I can figure SOMETHING out… Oh! I know! Maybe I’ll just jump off a cliff! Or…drown myself in a lake or… perhaps…hire a firing squad and a priest for my last rites… Really, there are all SORTS OF THINGS I CAN DO, LUCIFER NOW GET OUT OF MY DREAMS OR SO HELP ME-“

“SAAAAMMMYYYYYY, SAMMY SAMMY… You still don’t get it.” The brick wall she’d longed to drive her face into materialized suddenly between the two and, with great joy, she began slamming her face into it.

“ALL I was trying to say is you seem to forget yourself. Your…importance as it were.” Sam ceased carving holes in the brick wall with her face long enough to offer a sidelong glance at the angel as he sidled around the side of the wall.

“Really then, Lucifer! Enlighten me, please. And while you’re at it, how about you explain to me how it is you CONTINUE to pop up in my dreams like this. You’re worse than a truck stop salad.” Her voice dripped with a sarcasm that darkened the Devil’s eyes. A myriad of things flickered through Nick’s eyes, things she couldn’t quite pin down before they’d fled behind his wall of dark mirth and calculating smirk.

“Do you really think I’d ever let you die?” Suddenly his voice was closer, honey-sweet and smooth and dancing along her skin like a gentle caress, his physical form no longer visible to her. Sam started to turn but was stopped as the wall she created began to stretch and elongate, encircling her and cutting off the view of her foggy dream world. 

“You and I? We’re CONNECTED, Sammy. Tied together in a way that no amount of distance could ever sever or disturb... Physically locating you may not be possible at the moment…but your mind? Your beautiful, simple little human mind? I close my eyes and it’s like a beacon to me.” He chuckled. Vaguely Sam was aware that the fear she felt was…illogical. Unnecessary. This was, after all, her dream and her rules inside of her mind. And yet… as the walls continued to close around her, suffocating her, bringing forth an intense and overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia, Sam was nothing less than terrified.

“You’re MINE, Samantha. Nothing, not even Death, will keep me from you. It’s only a matter of time before I track you down… Before you give in to me.” His voice seemed to come from everywhere. Lucifer was leaking into her thoughts, transforming what was usually a tranquil setting into a world of chaos. The world around her blackened first and then exploded in harsh, violent shades of red and green. Beneath her the ground began to twist and writhe and suddenly she was ankle deep in a pit of venomous snakes, their fangs grazing her skin as their thick bodies wrapped solidly around her legs. All the while the brick wall was closing in, pressing the snakes more firmly to her legs and then forcing them higher and higher. That sense of claustrophobia, of being helpless and bound and unable to do anything, intensified ten-fold and it was all she could do to keep from screaming.

“Mine.”

“Sammy… Sammy? SAMMY!” The Winchester jumped, wrenching her back as she spasmed back into the world of the conscious. Her breathing was erratic, strangled, as she gulped down the familiar scents that always accompanied being in the Impala. The soothing scent of worn leather and her sister’s shampoo were enough to leave her feeling grounded. Calmed to the point where she could begin to rationalize what had just happened. It seemed that Lucifer was growing impatient. Less willing to simply wait for the younger Winchester to come to him. Despite the belief that they would soon meet in Detroit for their final, personal showdown, Sam refused to believe herself capable of surrendering in any way to the Devil. Her mind managed to process this in well under the two minutes it took for her to appear fully conscious.

“…I’m awake, jeez Dee, what’s wrong?” Her sister remained silent for a moment, seeming to take in each and every carefully maneuvered display of tiredness Sam projected; her voice was properly laced with sleep, a yawn was fighting to escape and she rubbed at her eyes as though trying to clear them. After what seemed an eternity, Deanna finally spoke.

“Sammy…You were…” Dee paused, hesitating as she rolled words and phrases around in her mind before finally speaking. 

“You were having some pretty bad dreams there, Sam.” Her tone was gentle, Sam noted. The type of gentle, the EXACT same time of gentle as a matter of fact, that she herself had employed when she had first broached the subject of Dee’s nightmares. In response Sam said nothing, fists clenched painfully at her sides.

“I mean they were really bad Sammy… You were talking, you know. Saying actual words, not any of that mumbling bullshit we used to do as kids.” Sam bristled, feeling defensive and terrified. She hadn’t said anything to Deanna about the dreams she’d been having lately… The conversations with the Devil that were all too real and far too lucid to be anything but actual communication. She waited for Dee to continue, silently counting to ten before speaking.

“Oh…?” Was all she managed, forcing a swallow or two to prevent her voice was breaking. “Anything interesting?” Her tone was light, she commented to herself; that was good! Downplay any seriousness of the situation. Still, she could not force her gaze away from the windshield, seemingly fascinated with the horizon as the sun was just beginning to set, brilliant shades of red and blue bleeding out from the very edge of the horizon.

“Yeah…. Is there uh… ANYTHING you’d like to tell me, Sam?” Her voice had gotten harder and when Sam snuck a glance over she saw that Dee’s hands were gripping the steering wheel hard enough to elicit a tiny creak in the leather.

“Sorry, Dee, I uh… Don’t REALLY know the winning lotto numbers.” She murmured and, for a moment, she thought Dee was going to pull the car over and beat the tar out of her. The air inside the Impala seemed supercharged, crackling with tension as neither sister said anything for at least ten minutes. Still ramrod straight, Sam flinched as Dee twisted in her seat, allowing Sam a full view of her face… a face that spoke volumes of Dee’s mental exhaustion and then Sam’s heart was breaking.

“Sammy I can’t… I can’t do this lying shit anymore.” Her words were soft, her hurt easing out between the tiny breaths of air that accompanied each syllable. 

“It’s too much. After Ruby-“

“I know, Dee.”

“No, Sammy, you DON’T know. If you DID know, then you wouldn’t be keeping this shit from me! You’ve been seeing him in your dreams, haven’t you? Lucifer; and you’ve been talking to him too, right?” Sam winced at the implication in her words, shaking her head violently as she started to speak.

“Yeah, okay, I’ve been seeing Lucifer in my dreams-“

“God DAMN IT SAMMY, and how long were you going to keep this from me?!”

“Just give me a second to explain, Dee!” Sam wasn’t sure at what point they had begun shouting at each other but now their voices filled the enclosed space, voices laced with anger and reverberating loudly in the small confines of the Impala. Both sisters were breathing heavily; Sam waited until she could catch her breath and force her rage back before finally speaking.

“Yes, Lucifer has been inside my head…” She ground out. “But it’s not like I’m just…just LETTING him in there. I can feel him sometimes…scratching. Trying to communicate with me when I’m awake, I think… The only time I let down my mental guard is when I sleep, and it’s not like I’m doing it on purpose; even then I don’t always see him. Usually I can…” She struggled, trying to find the right way to phrase things. 

“Usually I can kick him out, I guess. Or wake myself up… That’s why I’ve been so tired… I’m not always able to sleep through the night.”

“Okay…but why wouldn’t you TELL me, Sammy? I bet there’s SOMETHING Cas could do to help keep Lucifer out of your head.”

“Maybe…but with your own…dreams… I just didn’t want to put any more pressure on you by bringing it up. Like I said, up until now I’ve been handling it.” Sheepish though her words sounded, Sam meant every line. Deanna’s nightmares had begun escalating both in frequency and intensity as they had continued their trek and amplified their search efforts for a way out of the Apocalypse. Lucifer had until recently been nothing more than a nuisance; just an annoying little buzz in the back of her mind that could just as easily be ignored as it could be acknowledged. All of Sam’s free time had been focused on trying to find an alternative method to aid in Dee’s nightmares while her own troubles were forgotten.

Minutes passed in a silence so heavy that Sam could feel it settling over her like a heavy, suffocating blanket.

“Christ, Sammy…” Dee murmured as she flicked the blinker up to the right and began pulling over to the side of the road. The sun had all but set now, leaving the world soaked in oranges and reds; it had been seven hours since they’d left the motel and it was now Sam’s turn to drive. Sam could not help but gaze at the twilit world around her, marveling at the freshness of the world in the freezing air around them. Piles of snow, tiny and pristine despite being located next to a frequented road, dotted the landscape. They had seen snow before, yes. Had lived and breathed and slept in places where the snow had made it difficult to track and hunt. But she would be lying if Sam said she saw nothing beautiful about it. The way it silenced the world was both utterly gentle and entirely brutal. In a way, the snow reminded her of themselves; their solidarity and solidity and their own harsh beauty in the face of the world’s coming winter.

Dee leaned against the Impala at Sam’s side, silently watched the sun chase the colors down beyond the horizon, setting and leaving the world with only a hint of light before the world was swallowed in darkness. The ritual the world underwent each and every day without fail was a gentle reminder that time was moving ever forward. Something that could be counted on, day after day, to rise and fall, to rescue the world from darkness before plunging it right back into it. Simultaneously and without comment the girls pushed away from the vehicle and switched sides, Sam taking over for Dee in the driver’s seat. Sam adjusted the seat to better fit her longer legs while Dee pulled the lever to raise her seat up into a position more comfortable to sit in.

With a glance at Dee, Sam turned the key in the ignition, bringing the Impala purring the life around them. Signaling, Sam eased the Impala back out onto the road, brought it up to speed and continued onward. For several minutes neither sister spoke.

“So what changed?” Sam blinked back her surprise as Dee broke the quiet.

“Uh…what’re you talkin’ about…?”

“It’s not like you’ve been waking ME up with any nightmares…and considering how loud that little nightmare was right there, I’m willing to bet you’d have woken me up before. Why the nightmare? What’s CHANGED?” Sam was quiet for a moment, rolling Dee’s question around her head. When she paused for a moment, when she thought about it, she realized there wasn’t really any surefire answer she had to this… However, she had a FEELING. A sense of what it was driving Lucifer to be so damn insistent.

“I think it’s the rings, Dee.”

“…Uh, come again?”

“The RINGS, Dee. I mean we’ve very nearly got all the Horsemen’s rings… probably he knows what we’re gonna try… Even if that’s NOT the case…well…” Sam flushed, shrugging slightly as she sighed. Trying to figure out a way to discuss the things she felt, the things she felt from Lucifer, was difficult. 

“To be honest Dee? I think he’s just…losing patience. Getting anxious, ya know? I mean… Detroit…” She shrugged again; trying to analyze the complex array of literal and unspoken thoughts and actions from Lucifer and the meanings of said actions…it was exhausting. Her shoulders sagged, something akin to relief seeping through her as Dee finally spoke.

“Okay… okay. So he still doesn’t know where you are… he still can’t physically find you at least. That just means we have to hurry, right? We have to get… get Death’s ring. Soon. Before he figures out how to find you. Right? Yeah. You hear anything from Bobby?” Sam sighed, rubbing her neck and shoulders with her right hand, left gripping the steering wheel even tighter, the leather creaking beneath her palm.

“No… The last time I tried calling he sort of… hung up on me…?” Dee barked out a laugh, the sound sudden and sharp in the small confines of the Impala.

“He…hung up on you?”

“Yeah… said he was working on something big and my constant calls were distracting him…called me an ‘idjit’ and hung up on me. That was…like… four days ago? I haven’t heard anything from him since.” Another laugh, Dee’s raspy voice wiping away what little tension had gathered in the air around them.

“Yeah, sounds about right… Well, not much we can do in the meantime, right?” Dee yawned, reclining the seat to the same angle Sam had used whilst napping earlier. 

“We’ll figure out what’s goin’ on in Devi’s Lake…see if it’s something related to Lucifer’s actions.” Dee yawned, stretching herself out before curling up in the seat.

“Yeah… Yeah I guess you’re right.” Sam murmured, fiddling with the radio until she found a station devoted to classical music. Turning it down so she could just hear it, Sam settled back into the seat and her thoughts, listening only half-heartedly as Dee’s breathing slowed beside her. Before long a sort of silence descended in the vehicle. With the quiet broken only by the soft lull of the music and the quiet, even breathing of her sister, Sam began slipping away into her thoughts. She wondered at so many things. She wondered at Dee’s seemingly dispassionate perspective on the entire Lucifer thing. She wondered at Lucifer’s intensions; though his end game was relatively simple to determine, the way he was going about everything left her mystified. Why terrify her like that? Was it some sort of display of dominance? A shudder eased through her as she remembered the conviction with which he’d spoken to her. His, he’d called her. Connected; Lucifer had said they were connected. Surely he meant that on a more…cosmic level, right? Surely the not so subtle signs of possessiveness were the same as when a small child found a toy they particularly liked, right?

Surely she didn’t find herself at all attracted to this, right?

Quite suddenly Sam was sick to her stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit, I'm a little slow both to update and to get to the point but... I love words. I love them. And I want you to see exactly what I see when I think and create these stories. I have some delightful places this is going so if you've got the patience, stick with me. Hopefully, you won't regret it.
> 
> Anyway, constructive criticism and comments always welcome but... I hope you like my latest chapter.

The rest of the drive to Devil’s Lake was mercifully uneventful. Sam had switched the radio to some random pop station. There she found comfort in the pointless, idle chatter of the late night DJ interspersed between random songs of the minute. Finding a motel for the evening had been simple and Sam had paid the uninterested pimpled teenage boy at the front counter before parking the Impala. Gingerly she’d helped her mostly sleeping sister into their room before dressing down to her skivvies and falling into a dreamless sleep. When morning invaded their room Sam woke to find herself well rested and refreshed. Anxiety gnawed at the pit of her churning stomach as thoughts of Lucifer’s absence filled her with dread.

She weighed the positives and negatives between telling Dee that she was on edge because Lucifer HADN’T been in her dreams, and just going back to sleep until it was her turn for the shower. The decision was made for her as her eyelids fluttered shut and twenty minutes later she was fighting to keep her blanket in place. When it became apparent that she would not be left alone, Sam roused enough to shove Dee away with her foot.

“Wow, I haven’t seen you like this in weeks. That mean you actually slept through the night?” Sam’s gaze slipped from her sister’s face, watching from the corner of her eye as Dee dried her hair with the towel. She tasted the words for a moment before speaking.

“Yeah. I didn’t have any dreams,” She murmured, scratching absently at her arm. “Nothin’ at all.” Dee snorted.

“Well don’t sound so ENTHUSIASTIC about it, Sammy.”

“It’s not that, Dee. I’m just worried is all.” She managed.

“Worried?”

“Well, if he’s in my head, pestering me and keeping me from sleeping then I know what he’s doing.” She trailed off, shrugging as she moved to the sink where she found her toothbrush and toothpaste laying haphazardly on the counter next to Dee’s. When next she glanced up, mouth full of toothpaste, it was to see Dee leaning against the doorjamb watching her intensely.

“So any idea where to start?” Sam managed through her foamy mouth. Dee offered up a curt nod.

“Go ahead and shower; I’ll grab us some food, ask some questions at the local coffee joint, then we’ll regroup and head to the police station. Figure we’ll start there.” Sam nodded; Cas had briefed them the evening prior as they’d packed up. As Dee gathered up her wallet and dressed for the chilly weather outside Sam kicked the bathroom door shut and ruminated on what Cas had told them earlier.

Six attacks, enough to grab their angel’s attention despite the hellacious happenings of the coming apocalypse. Sam smirked, stripping mechanically as the water heated and steam filled the room. True the Winchesters were studiously avoiding the coming Apocalypse and the various rampaging angels out for their meat suits, but that didn’t stop them from rescuing the proverbial damsel in distress when they came across them.

The attacks that had brought them had started roughly three weeks ago. The first victim had washed up on the banks of the lake and was found by a fisherman in the early dawn. The man’s eyes had been wide and unseeing, mouth contorted in a look of agony and lungs filled with lake water. The coroner had declared it a drowning at the scene; seeing no outward indications pointing to anything but drowning (and considering the limitations of the town’s fund), Mr. Gregory Alorne was laid to rest a sad victim of off-season swimming.

Then the second victim had shown up she mused as she massaged shampoo into her scalp. Elizabeth Bluffe, twenty-four, sister to a one Jeanne Smith, mother of twins and now currently residing at Mercy Hospital. Unlike Mr. Alorne, Elizabeth had been found wandering through the center of town at 5:45 in the morning; a janitor just arriving for his shift had nearly suffered a heart attack when he found her wandering in dazed circles on the well-manicured lawn. She would soon be transferred to the North Dakota Insane Asylum at Jamestown, as would Jeffrey Burges and Bethany Dupree, both found under similar circumstances. Each victim shared the same set of physical symptoms.

Found on each of the victims an inch or two behind their left ears was a circular wound approximately the size of a quarter, the depth of which differed betwixt the victims. Further analysis of their bodies found that the eardrum on the same side had been destroyed. An inspection of their ear canals showed that the massive damage was likely due to some foreign object being forced inside the delicate canal. Whatever had destroyed their eardrums was likely also the same thing that had caused the brain damage. She frowned as she shut off the water and began drying herself. The damage ranged between the victims from the extreme (ultimately those who had died) to the relatively mild (resulting in various disabilities). Those who had not made it had revealed brains that appeared to be missing literal chunks of matter while those still among the living were left with varying degrees of mental disabilities. 

She dressed as quickly as she was able, preparing to meet with the local police department. She hoped that they would be able to meet with the victims before the day was done. Glancing through drawn out reports filled with verbose descriptions and heavy-handed medical terms was one thing and meeting with the afflicted individual was another. The Winchesters had a better chance of determining what had happened to them, assuming the cause was at all supernatural.

Sam was finishing the final touches on her own outfit, straightening her tie and applying some mousse in an attempt to control her waves and curls in a way that looked professional, when Dee hailed her from the other room. A tiny adjustment to the scarf she’d found in her luggage and her ghastly wound was sufficiently covered. She slid from the bathroom in relative silence, easing into the unoccupied chair at the table where Dee had deposited their food. She dug around in the bag on the table until she found the oatmeal, still hot through the small takeaway container. She was delighted to see fresh blueberries and brown sugar still melting in the heat of the steaming oats when she peeled the lid away.

“Ahh, that crooked smile.” Sam blinked in surprise, staring owlishly as Dee unwrapped some biscuit based breakfast.

“Err, what was that?” Dee shook her head, smiling gently in a way that made Sam both happy and a little uncomfortable.

“Nothin’, Xena. So I managed to get a little more information about the attacks around Devil’s Lake.”

“Supernatural?” Dee snorted and polished off her sandwich.

“Yeah, to say the least… I’ve never heard so many crazy rumors coming from one place; everything from aliens to Nessie, I swear. No one has any concrete details but there are aspects of the story that ring true with what Cas told us; namely the mystery toxin, the deaths, the insanity, and the closing of the lake.” A couple more bites and Dee’s food was gone; she crumbled the wrappers and bunched everything together in the largest of the takeout bags as she stood to pace.

“I’m just gonna change then we’ll head over the sheriff’s office, then to the hospital. Sound good?” Sam managed a nod as Dee dug through her duffel for a change of clothes. Leaving Sam to her own thoughts felt dangerous; the recent revelations regarding Sam’s increasingly disturbing dreams had left her feeling vulnerable and more than a little violated. Already she could feel the scratching at the walls of her mind. It was a light, delicate touch that to many would go unnoticed; nothing more than a tingle or the beginnings of a headache. For the younger Winchester it was the now far too familiar feeling of Lucifer reaching out to her.

She shuddered and pushed what remained of her oatmeal aside, appetite having suddenly fled her. The thought of Lucifer in her head, scratching at her walls and attempting to ooze his way into her waking thoughts was sickening, disturbing, and above all terrifying. There was at least some comfort in that, while conscious, she could keep him safely at arm’s length. With a sigh that spoke volumes Sam leaned forward and placed her chin in her upturned hands, gaze drifting towards the small crack left open between the shades.

“YO, Xena! You listenin’ to me like, at all?” Sam snapped out of the beginnings of a daydream and jerked into awareness, blinking away the shades of white clinging to her vision as she turned to address her sister who had made herself presentable.

“Err, sorry Dee. I got a little distracted.”

“I said, grab your coat. It’s just about nine; the sheriff should be in. After we chat with the sheriff we’ll head to the hospital, alright?”

“Sounds like a plan. Hey, do you think this’ll hide the neck wound without being too conspicuous?” Sam gestured to the scarf around her neck. The dark brown tartan patterned garment was just as soft as the day their father had given it to her and it pulled the entire outfit together. Dee offered up a crooked grin and a short nod. 

“Ya look good, Sam. The long sleeves cover the arm and…the scarf covers your neck entirely. You should be good.” The sisters tugged their boots on over thick woolen socks and laced up their coats, unable to fully brace themselves for the shock of cold that stole their breaths once they had opened the door. After a quick check of the vehicle and the promise to each other for hot beverages before heading to the hospital, the duo set out into the icy morning.

OoOoOoOoO

Despite the fact that her tea was cold, Sam could not bring herself to throw away the dregs remaining at the bottom of her insulated Styrofoam cup. Her hands were rigid and icy, gripping the creaking vessel and leaving fingernail wounds in its’ side. Dee had disappeared to find a doctor; though they had learned a great deal from the sheriff himself, they needed to confirm a few things before hunting that night. Dee hadn’t said much before disappearing into the quiet chaos of the small hospital but Sam had seen enough in her sister’s tight lipped, openly worried expression to let her go without stopping her.

Elizabeth Bluffe, the twenty-four year old mother of two, sister to one who had recently returned to school to pursue a psychology degree, lay prone on her bed. The woman’s eyes rolled behind closed lids as her breath came low and shallow in her chest. According to the nurse they had interviewed moments prior, the woman had moments of lucidity but these were rare and interspersed between night terrors so violent she often had to be restrained. In their line of work, this was normality. Hers was a better fate than even the Winchesters could hope to experience.

No, what terrified the sisters was that Sam and Beth could have been twins. The length of their hair, height, overall build, even the color of their eyes…the resemblance was uncanny and horribly chilling. Aside from Beth’s shorter hair and rounder features the woman looked more like Sam’s sister than Dee did. They were similarities that left the skin at the back of Sam’s neck prickling. The cup was pulp in her clenched hand and tea was dripping between closed fingers but the hunter seemed not to notice. The entirety of Sam’s attention was trained on the woman with the hollow cheeks and the dark circles beneath her eyes.

Sam blinked in surprise and dropped her cup as the not so comatose woman struggled to sit up; Beth’s eyes had gone wide and were now filled with fear and confusion as her head swiveled this way and that.

“No, here, let me help.” Sam murmured just loud enough to be heard as she approached the woman’s bed. Using as much care and gentleness as one might use with a child, Sam cradled the woman around her shoulders, placing only a minute amount of pressure on the woman’s bed as Sam helped settle her against the pillows of her bed. Once it seemed the woman was stable Sam withdrew her grip and began to rise from the bed.

“No-No wait.” The woman’s voice, quiet and insistent in the cool, dimly lit room caused Sam to hesitate. The hunter sat back down on the bed beside the woman and took the woman’s shaking arm; whatever she was witnessing behind her unfocused gaze was enough to bring goose bumps to Sam’s skin. The fear was evident in the woman’s tremors, in the way her eyes flickered back and forth nearly rolling in her skull as she twitched restlessly beneath the sheets. 

Unsure if what she was doing was the right thing, Sam raised a tentative hand and began to brush back the woman’s hair, stroking her head gently in the gloom. When Beth did not panic at this motion, Sam leaned over and began to rock the woman with gentle, careful movements, murmuring that it was okay, that everything was going to be okay. After a short while, the woman calmed; her body relaxed against Sam’s, hand loosening its’ grip on Sam’s until she could stand again. Still maintaining her grip on the woman’s hand, Sam reached out and dragged a chair beside the bed. Quietly she sat and brought her second hand up so that Beth’s gently shaking hand was held in her own.

“Beth…?”

“Beth Beth-BethBethBethBeth.” The woman muttered, murmuring her own name as though it were a chant. Sam winced inwardly, trying to hide the pain she felt at hearing a woman spoken so highly of, a woman who knew everyone and who had been known by everyone, a woman whom even the sheriff had been emotional over, brought so low.

“Yes, Beth. Beth, sweetheart, do you know where you are?”

“Beth I…we…that is…to say.” She seemed to chew on her words for a while, frowning as though they tasted wrong.

“It’s okay, Beth. Just take your time.” Sam murmured.

“I am… I can’t be… It hurt so much so much so… It HURT, Sam, it HURT.” Sam jerked backwards, kept in place only by Beth’s suddenly iron tight grip. It had to be coincidence; Beth thought Sam was someone else, thought that-

“Samantha, it HURT. You and-and Dee can’t… you can’t go.” Beth was talking TO HER, to Samantha Winchester, the hunter hunched over the bed trying to free her arm.

“Beth how do you-“

“You don’t understand it wasn’t ME. It wasn’t ME DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND! Sam. It wasn’t for me. It was never for me.” Beth’s quiet, strained voice was sharp in the semi-darkness, filling the room with her anxious words as her gaze drifted to towards the door.

“Beth I don’t-“

“DON’T GO NEAR THE LAKE.” Sam blanched as Beth turned and screamed in her face. Beth’s hands clamped harder onto Sam’s upper arms, pulling her down towards the bed until their faces were less than an inch apart.

“DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE YOU STAY AWAY FROM THAT LAKE IT WASN’T FOR ME DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND IT WASN’T FOR ME IT’S YOU DON’T YOU GET IT JUST STAY AWAY GO HOME GET OUT GET AWAY GET LOST GET!!!” Sam tried to pull away, prying at Beth’s fingers as panic began to burble steady and urgent in her throat and belly. The woman’s nails were digging viscously into the delicate skin at Sam’s wrist, breaking the skin and bringing blood welling to the surface. Though she would hate to admit it to herself later Sam was, at that moment in time, filled with more fear than she could remember ever before experiencing.

“B-Beth please, I-“

“Sammy? Sammy! Doctor, help us here dammit!” Dee’s voice was a balm amidst the din of terror Sam found herself in. It brought her back from the precipice of unadulterated fear and reinstated her position in the world. She felt hands, her sister’s, gripping her shoulder and arm as she watched the doctor and a nurse go for Beth. The woman was beyond terrified, steeped in hysteria and soaking in panic, eyes rolling and distant as sweat poured down her pale face. Through the shrieks and wails and the flying limbs and hospital smells Sam could smell the woman’s fear. It was sour, pungent enough to take the hunter’s breath away. Beth’s hair was plastered to her face, legs spasming wildly beneath flimsy hospital sheets; her lips were blue and the whites of her eyes were red where a vein had burst. Though Sam’s fear had not entirely ebbed, her worry for Beth’s frame of mind and physical form far outweighed her own.

“GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUUUUUTTT-“ The woman howled, back bowing beneath some unseen stress. Just as Sam could no longer feel her own hand the nurse arrived and medication was administered and slowly, bit by bit, Beth began to calm. Her grip on Sam’s arm loosened and, after a tense moment or two, her hand fluttered away from Sam’s wrist and down onto the bed.

“Christ, Sam, you’re bleeding.” Dee’s voice was loud at her ear. Sam, however, could not pull her gaze away from Beth. Though heavily sedated and doing little more than breathing, her eyes maintained that wild fear she’d seen only moments prior at full strength. And as they began to flutter, the medication taking hold and dragging Beth down into the darkest depths of sleep, that brightness left them, leaving them glassy behind her slowly drooping lids. Sam maintained eye contact long after Beth’s eyes had closed and her breathing had steadied out, only acknowledging Dee’s insistence that the nurse take a look at her wrist once she was satisfied that Elizabeth Bluffe was down for the count.

After a quick once over, some basic first aid and tiny bandages over three of the worst punctures, Sam was pronounced “good as new”, and the Winchesters were left alone with the doctor. After the dance of formalities, one they could perform with aplomb and grace aplenty in their sleep, they got down to business.

“So has Beth uh… has she ever reacted like that to anyone before?” The doctor sighed, rubbing his hand absently over his face in a gesture that betrayed his exhaustion.

“No. She’s actually been the calmest of the ones brought in from the attack. More often than not she seems confused. Lost, most of the time. She asks for her…for her mother a lot.” The doctor had to pause then, clearing his throat and glancing to the window where, almost conveniently the graveyard across the street was visible. “But overall? Beth is one of the easiest to handle patients here. We think that her eventual transition will be relatively easy but after that episode I’m concerned.” Sam could feel her heart aching in her chest. After a few more questions the “agents” thanked the good doctor for his time and together they left the hospital.

Sam was silent during the car ride back to the motel, hands clenching and unclenching in her lap as she wrestled with feelings she was unable to voice. Deanna hadn’t even attempted conversation; what had happened at the hospital had rattled them both. It wasn’t until they had returned to their room, door slamming behind them against the icy winds, that Sam finally spoke.

“Don’t EVEN say it, Dee, you KNOW I’m coming with you.” Dee winced at Sam’s sharp tone, guilt flickering briefly through her. Sam was already half naked as she dug through her back for her thick coat and socks.

“Were you NAPPING at the hospital, Samantha?” Sam winced; the full use of her name was always an omen of ill things to come. She continued to change, pointedly facing away from Dee to better avoid the look of fury she knew would be on her sister’s face.

“No, Dee, I wasn’t.”

“So then in what tiny little corner of your mind could it POSSIBLY make sense to go to that damn LAKE?”

“Don’t you get it Dee? It’s BECAUSE of what happened at the hospital that I have to go.” Sam had already stripped to her undergarments; the fresh white bandages at her neck and around her arm stood out in stark contrast against her lightly tanned skin. Dee could not keep her emotions from her face and hated the way she felt her cheeks darken in response to the situation.

“I don’t care. I don’t know why you think Beth’s injuries or the deaths of those people are related to you but I. Don’t. Care. There is LITERALLY nothing you could say to me that will convince me that it’s a good idea for you to go to that lake!”

“Yeah? Well guess what, Dee? You don’t have a choice. You either take me with you, or I walk my ass out there. And DON’T EVEN think about calling your feathery puppy down; you know he’ll just agree with me or put me in a poor attempt of a prison cell. I’m going to that lake, Dee. I can’t just…” She paused; jaw working as she chewed the remainder of her thought while she finished layering her winter gear. Deanna remained silent, throwing herself wholeheartedly into the task of changing into winter attire. While allowing her sister near the lake that Beth had warned them away from seemed like the epitome of insanity, Dee knew Sam was right. Whatever was out there was clearly targeting the Winchesters, Sammy in particular, and was willing to destroy anyone it encountered. At the very least, they owed it to the existing victims to do what they could to stop it. More importantly, anything directly related to either of the Winchesters was likely apocalyptic in nature.

“Listen, you stay WITH ME the whole time, you got that? I’ll call Cas down when we get there and see if I can grab his attention for long enough to search the lake’s shores. We’re just doing a quick run, all right? We can go back when we’ve got a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“Sure, no problem Dee.” Ten minutes later they were back in the Impala. The twenty minutes it took to drive to the edge of the lake were twenty of the most awkward minutes that either of them could remember; the tension burned in the air between them and neither seemed capable of speaking.

They would later be twenty minutes that Dee would come to regret.

OoOoOoOoO

True to what the sheriff had told them, the lake had been entirely cordoned off. Warnings were posted everywhere urging people to avoid not only the lake but the trails surrounding the body of water as well. There were two parking lots, each leading to opposing sides of the lake through a series of paths that twisted away from the lot; from what the Winchesters could tell, said paths were frequented hiking paths. The hunters chose the smaller of the two lots, driving nonchalantly through the faded yellow caution tape to park in a spot closest to one of the three prominent paths, each marked by equally faded tape. The signs warning people off were fresh and old, faded and sharp, and they were everywhere. Sam wished she could blame the cold for the chills running up and down her spine.

The police had set up a strict, rigorous, and random schedule of sweeps in the area. Through a rather impressive display of smiles and light touches, Sam had managed to attain the rough schedule for this evening. They reached the lake just after one; they would be free of the night watch until 1:45 giving them very little time to check out the lake. Dee parked and they headed down the trail, ducking beneath the tape, weapons in hand and senses on high alert. It wasn’t until they reached the edge of the sprawling, expansive lake that Sam finally broke the silence.

“I…I think we should split up.”

“Are you kidding me?! No way. We call Cas and wait for him to show up and then we can split up. Under no circumstances are you going to be alone out there, Sammy.”

“Just hear me out; there’s no point at any distance of this lake where we can’t see each other… We don’t get within twenty feet of the lake’s edge and we meet on the opposite end. We’ll just check of the basics. We don’t have much time, right?” 

“CAS!” Dee whispered as loudly as she dared, hissing the angel’s name into the icy air. “Cas, get your feathery butt down here! Come on Cas!” Nearly three minutes passed in this manner with Dee trying with no luck to reach their heavenly companion. Sam was painfully aware of every second passing by; the officer she’d spoken with had mentioned that often they would arrive early for their patrols. Time was most certainly not on their side.

“Come on Dee this is ridiculous; the thing with Beth was WEIRD, yeah, but we live in weird. Weird is our bread and butter. We’ve both got flashlights so we can keep track of each other across the water and we can use our cell phones if you want. We need to get going, Deanna. The longer we’re just standing here the more likely it is the cops’ll be by.” Dee watched Sam’s mouth, words becoming a translucent fog in the freezing night air. She glanced skyward, frowning slightly when she realized that the clouds had finally moved in and the stars were nowhere to be seen. The storm was moving faster than they’d originally believed and now there was the threat of a snow dump added to the possibility of being caught.

“Fine, but every two minutes, and I mean two minutes on the freaking nose, you flash your light three times in my direction and I’ll do the same. We clear?” Sam nodded, eyes hollow and dark in the flashlight. Having reached an agreement the Winchesters split up, pistols and flashlights in hand.

OoOoOoOoOoO

For a while, Sam focused on the sound of her boots crunching on the dry leaves and sticks and rocks layered between the freshly frozen snow that made up the lake edge. Her breath ghosted the air before her, swirling and looping around her face and condensing on her cheeks as she stepped through it. She had re-holstered her weapon and pulled out her EMF reader, flashlight held resolutely in her dominant hand. She sighed as Dee’s light flashed from the other side, earlier and more insistent than it should have been. Sam could still make out the vague shape of her sister’s body, illuminated by the peripheral light of her own flashlight. Trying hard not to be irritated she returned the flashes of light, hefting the monstrous flashlight up to rest on her shoulder, its weight comforting to the wary hunter. She tromped along in the cold with no readings from the EMF, neither seeing nor smelling any sulfur, and hearing nothing beyond the sound of her own breath and the lapping of water at the lake’s edge.

Regardless, Sam was on edge. The hairs along the back of her neck stood on end and she couldn’t help but grind her teeth as she walked. It was only a matter of time before-

“Sssssaaaaaammmmmm…..”

She froze mid-step, eyes widening as adrenaline exploded at the sound of her name, heart pounding and racing violently in her chest. Immediately she tried to rationalize it, to calm herself down-

“Sssssssssaaaaammmmaaaaaaaanthaaaaa…”

She couldn’t deny that whisper in the wind.

Unbidden she began to step towards the lake, feet moving her mechanically towards the gently lapping waters. 

Her mind began to drift, her thoughts becoming thick and heavy. Vaguely she was aware that Dee would soon be looking for her light, which she was pretty sure she had just dropped. It wasn’t until she was thigh deep in the icy waters, feet moving slowly and steadily through the slushy mix, that she noticed Dee’s light flashing frantically from almost halfway across the body of water. If she focused, she could just barely hear her name being called. But even her name felt far away, as distant as the stars reflected on the rippling surface of the lake.

She was now waist deep in the lake; her body had burst into gooseflesh and she could not stop shivering. All at once everything clicked, falling perfectly into place. How silly they both were to have fought fate so violently. How ridiculous to think that the end of the world could be halted, that they could be the ones to do it, just because they wished it. She was calm, a sense of manufactured ease flowing through her limbs and chest and heart and brain. Sammy pushed onward, legs on fire and slowly numbing as the water began to kiss at her lower belly; it crept up along her breasts, stiffening her nipples before rising over her clavicle to settle at the base of her neck. She was effectively floating at this point, arms gently waving to keep herself afloat. Her eyes, half-lidded and heavy, searched the rippling waters around her.

It launched itself from the water a few inches from her face; a protrusion as thick as her upper arm shot forward, wrapping itself around her neck and almost instantaneously dragged her beneath the lake. Her mouth filled with water as she let loose a strangled, drowned cry.

OoOoOoOoO

Bythotrephes, more commonly known as spiny water fleas, are a growing hazard in lakes everywhere; they are known to quickly and efficiently throw entire ecosystems off balance. Their spines are proportionally long, making up approximately seventy percent of its’ body length and it contains one to four pairs of thorn-like barbs. Their heads consist primarily of a single, large eye filled with black pigment and a pair of mandibles. They possess four pairs of legs, the first pair being the longest of the set. Their spines make it difficult to be digested and they are therefore less likely to be devoured. They are in direct competition for food most important to young juvenile fish often wiping them entirely out. Though terrifying in description, the spiny water flea rarely grows beyond a quarter of an inch in length and due to their diminutive size are more of an irritation that anything.

It was not, however, an average bythotrephe that had grabbed hold of Sam. Approximately the size of a saint Bernard, this particular spiny water flea was more than a mere nuisance to the hunter it was currently drowning. The contact alone of the creature’s tail was enough to tear open the wound at her neck; she clawed at the creature’s tail, teeth gritted and bared beneath the waters as she desperately tried to free herself. Fear was overwhelming Sam’s ability to do more than scrabble helplessly at her neck unable to find any purchase there. The pain in her neck rose to a cacophony so loud she was seeing spots of white in the gloom as a spine pierced her neck, just below her ear and directly adjacent to her previous wound. She screamed silently, face contorting as her lungs filled with water; the pain was sudden and intense and gone almost as quickly as it had occurred. Within seconds she was light-headed and buzzing, her body growing numb in the waters.

On the surface, Dee had finally reached the spot she had seen Sam go under. She’d been just close enough to watch her sister vanish beneath the surface, had had just enough time to curse her own stupidity in allowing Sam to come along before she was wading out into the water. Dee stumbled into the shockingly icy lake, gasping as the sudden cold set her limbs aflame. None of it mattered; she had to save her little sister. Had to reach her before she drowned.

“SAAAAAMMM!!” Hoarse, terrified and all too aware that they had fallen into a trap that poor Beth had fallen into, Dee could not have sounded worse if she’d tried.

“Oh god, SAAAMMMM, oh god-” She dove awkwardly forward, caring little that she could see nothing, could hear nothing could feel nothing but the cold. Her desperation to find her sister seemed to override all baser instincts and it wasn’t until she was out of breath, floundering in the inky blackness of the lake, that she was forced to surface. Soaked and gasping she came back up for air.

“CAAASS!” She screamed, splashing wildly as she turned to face the shore. “OH GOD PLEASE, CAS HELP ME; CAAASSS GET YOUR FEATHERY ASS DOWN HERE-,”

“Deanna what are you doing in the middle of the lake?!” Using his voice as a beacon, Dee followed it back to the shore where she felt arms pulling her from the lake’s edge and helping her stand.

“Deanna you are…soaked…and you are shivering and-,”

“And Sam in still under there; PLEASE I can’t… I can’t SEE right now you’ve got to get her back.” Cas leaned over and pulled her into something like an embrace, holding her up as her knees gave out. Sam had been under the water for, roughly, three minutes and counting.

“Deanna, I-,”

“NO, NO MORE TALKING GET HER BACK.” They heard a noise coming from the lake, the distinctive sound of something breaking the surface. Dee scrambled to her feet and made to move to the water, stopped only when Cas shoved her roughly back to the ground and started out into the lake himself. Dee could do nothing but shiver, shuddering and gasping as she curled in on herself, waiting. Fear was not on her mind; fury, unwavering all-encompassing fury was. Deep down she’d known, had known all along, that something had been culminating here when she’d heard Cas’ story. 

Not moving was making it difficult to ignore how cold she was and holding herself in one place as she watched Cas retrieve the floating object was a pain of an entirely different kind. She listened, scarcely allowing herself to breathe as Cas gripped the floating form and, grunting slightly with the effort, pulled her sister to the shore.

Dee scrambled the few steps to where Cas was holding Sam, half in his lap and half on the rocky shore. Ignoring whatever it was Cas was saying, Dee leaned forward and brushed the clinging strands of damp, icy hair from her sister’s face. Her heart fluttered with something like hope as she watched her sister’s gaze, hazy and unfocused, drift from the cloudy sky to meet her own. Sam’s eyes cleared for a moment, mouth working silently as though she were trying to speak.

“D-…D…D…” A stutter, one Dee did not believe was caused by the cold, was all Sam seemed capable of as Dee’s hands swept up behind her sister’s neck and she felt a slickness there that was not lake water. What little blood remained in her face drained away, leaving Dee pale and feeling sick as the metallic tang of blood drifted up from her damp fingers.

“Shh, shh, Sammy it’s okay, it’s okay Sammy. Cas, can’t you-,”

“I am TRYING, Deanna.” He muttered, hands both hovering over Sam’s face.

“Then try HARDER, damn it.” Sam’s eyes rolled back, up and into her skull as her back bowed violently up from the ground, leaving only her heels touching the rocky bed and her head in the angel’s lap. The sudden intake of air was too violent to be called a gasp and before Dee could even contemplate what one would do in such a circumstance, Sam collapsed only to begin seizing moments later.

“Cas! Hold her down! Don’t let her hurt herself!” Together they held Sam down, both trying to apply enough force to control her movements without completely restraining her. The seizure lasted almost a full minute and was the most violent thing Dee had witnessed in quite some time. She considered herself lucky to walk away with only a broken nose, courtesy of a solid right knee to the face. Almost as suddenly as it had begun the seizure ended. Dee counted off a full minute before relaxing her grip, absently wiping at the blood dripping from her nose and upper lip; she hadn’t even felt it happen.

“Cas…get her to the motel. Drop me off at the Impala and I’ll get there soon.” With little more than a nod, the trio was lying beside the Impala, and then Dee was alone. It was then that the cold of the night hit her, taking her suddenly and with full force. It took her three tries to push herself to her feet and another minute to finally locate her keys, wedged deep in her pockets, cursing as her numb fingers refused to cooperate. Another four fumbles as she tried to insert the key in the lock had her incensed, fury burning hot enough to make her nearly bend the keys as she finally tore open the door and jammed them into the ignition. She cranked the heat up and seconds later squealed out of the parking lot, burning rubber as she headed straight to the motel. Sam’s blood had dried on her hands; her nose had stopped bleeding and what blood remained was drying into a sticky, tacky set of paths running from her nose to her chin. Though the heater was on, nearly blistering heat blowing at top force onto her freezing face, Deanna could not stop shaking. She wasn’t even aware of the moment that it began to snow, the first few flakes flying by the window too quickly for the woman to spot as she raced into the pitch-black night.

OoOoOoO

It felt like it had taken eons to reach the motel when, in all actuality, it had been less than ten minutes. Dee had been forced, against her greater desires, to slow what had begun as a breakneck speed when she realized that the roads had already begun to ice over. Despite the slipping and the sliding, the Impala held steady. Gritting her teeth, she drove in absolute silence with a single-minded focus that set her eyes smoldering in the darkness. She refused to let her mind wander down the paths of infinite possibilities for her sister’s future and was grateful for her moment’s solitary respite.

Fish-tailing, she slid into the first available spot in the lot and broke free of her car, slipping on a patch of ice as her foot touched down on the frozen sidewalk. The Winchester threw herself at their motel door and burst into the room after fumbling with the lock for far too long. Her gaze lit immediately on her sister, that pesky flicker of hope dancing in her chest.

Sam was, with the aide of the altogether dry-looking angel, leaning against the headboard of the second bed. Her gaze was fuzzy, yes, but she was conscious. Dee’s jaw tightened as her nose tingled and eyes stung with tears that threatened to fall. Once it seemed to register that her sister was alive, Dee managed a few steps forward and unlocked her clenched jaw.

“Sammy?” Sam’s head lolled across from one shoulder to the other so that it was leaning against Cas’ arm.

“Dee… Deanna… What’s…where are we…?” Dee’s throat constricted but she fought off the tears and, moving slowly so as not to alarm or frighten her already confused sister, Dee sat at the edge of Sam’s bed.

“Why….are you all wet, Dee? Did I…miss a pool party?” A wheezing cough seemed to have replaced Sam’s deep-throated laugh and for some reason Dee could not help but laugh along with her. Sam appeared to remember nothing of the lake. Dee wondered how much of their current circumstances her sister remembered at all but chose not to speak on it.

“Not quite, Sammy. People don’t usually go swimming in below freezing temperatures.” She snorted at her own words, the comment a jab at herself more than anything else before continuing. “I…I’m going to take a…quick shower. Do you think you’ll be okay while I’m gone?” Sam snickered, the sound more similar to a cough than laughter.

“Yeah I think… I might hit the sack. I kinda feel like I was run over by a truck or something… Wake me up first thing in the morning, okay?” Dee managed a nod and something that resembled a smile, eyes jumping up to meet Cas’ before finally responding.

“Sure, of course Sammy. Did you...wanna shower?”

“Naw… I’m pretty much ready to pass out.” She nodded again, not sure what else to say as she stood from the bed and slid into the bathroom. She stood there, shaking for a few moments as she listened to the deep baritone of Castiel’s voice, unable to hear the specifics of their conversation as Cas and Sam spoke in the other room. Silence fell in the other room and Dee tensed; seconds later Cas was in the room with her, staring at her with an intensity that caused her to blanch and momentarily forgot what it was she wanted to talk to him about. She flushed under his scrutiny; unable to ignore the way his eyes seemed to rove over her sodden and rather unkempt form. Feeling less flattered and more embarrassed, Dee crossed her arms over her chest and directed her gaze at the wall to the left of the angel.

“Alright, Cas. What the hell happened?” She murmured, half an ear cocked for sound from the other room.

“I…am not sure, Deanna. There is a small wound, right below her left ear. It was about this big-“ He enclosed his thumb and forefinger in a small circle approximately the size of a half dollar. “I attempted to heal it, but some sort of symbol or bruising pattern remains. It appears as though she’s lost her memory. When she came to she couldn’t figure out where she was. She does not appear to be in any pain but she,” He frowned, tilted his head in the way that Dee found unendurably adorable. “She smells…wrong.” The hunter blanched and stared at Cas as though he had grown a second head.

“Sam…smells wrong.” Dee repeated slowly as she stared into Cas’ far-off gaze. He nodded and said nothing more, as though this simple statement was enough to explain everything.

“Well, Cas, I didn’t know you’d become a blood-hound, as of late.” She said, her words as laden with sarcasm as her clothes were soaked with lake water. Turning away, back and arms and legs and head aching, Dee braced herself against the sink, bowing her head and leaning over the stained porcelain until her face nearly touched the bowl.

“I’m so tired, Cas. I just-I need to be sure she’s okay. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have let her come with me.” She shuddered when she felt a touch, warm and instantly soothing, at the base of her neck. Her body tensed of its own accord, as though preparing for battle, and Dee cursed her reflexes. She stood as calmly as she was able to, allowing the angel to ease away the physical pains, his fingers dancing along her skin with a knowledge that was almost sinful. He knew where to apply pressure, how much pressure to apply, where to just brush along the skin… The hunter hated how sex should have been the last thing on her mind but was the first thing her body wanted; she ached under his touch, muscles clenching involuntarily and skin heating beneath his hand.

“I must go. I will return in the morning…call for me if there is any change. I will see if there is any word from up in Heaven.” With a final, gentle squeeze Cas was gone, leaving Dee cold, frustrated, and bone-achingly exhausted. Dee stripped quickly and started the shower, thankful that her bag of toiletries had remained tossed in the corner of the bathroom. By the time she was done, teeth brushed and body both heated and dry, Dee was even beginning to wonder if any of their insane evening had even happened. A wayward glance to her discarded pile of clothes dispelled that notion. Even from where she stood she could see it; smears of blood staining the pale blue of the flannel shirt she’d worn out to the lake.

A moment’s pause outside the bathroom and when Dee could still hear the solid and gentle breathing of her sister she made her way over to the unoccupied bed. It took only seconds from her head hitting the pillow for her to fall into a solid sleep, the first in many nights devoid of dreams.

OoOoOoOoO

She was hot. Then cold. Then both. Then nothing. The nothing was too much and Sam found herself suddenly awake. Tilting her head she caught sight of her sister, lips parted and a soft whisper of breath proving her REM sleep to be solid and uneventful. Sam’s gaze flicked up and she realized that nobody had closed the curtains; through the sizeable gap in the shades she could see a pale light filtering in. She frowned; her thoughts and memories were muddy, thick, and dark. Closing her eyes and attempting to recall the past evening brought back brief, violent flashes of darkness and the feeling of being so cold she couldn’t breathe. Or…had that been the water?

A headache, so sudden and violent that Sam was fairly certain she’d just been hit with a lead pipe in the back of her skull, exploded from nowhere and left her gasping in bed. She curled in on herself, able only to squeeze her eyes shut and clench her teeth and force herself to take in short, pained gasps until the pain began to subside moments later. Slowly, slowly, forcing herself to take it easy, she opened her eyes and calmed her breathing. Once the hurricane of a headache had slowed to a light rain, Samantha sat up in bed wincing with the movement. She took a moment to perform a self-analysis.

Her throat felt thick, each swallow bringing with it the sharp pain she often felt when she had the flu. She frowned and brought the back of her hand to rest against her forehead and was annoyed to feel the heat of a fever. Swinging her legs out from under the comforter of the bed, Sam ignored the wave of nausea that hit her and, on legs that felt as though they had not been used in ages, she made her way over to the window. Free of the blanket Sam realized the room was icy; she shivered, wrapping her arms around her torso as she approached the window and peeked out from behind the curtains. At once she was both childishly delighted and taken by surprise.

Outside, the world had become a winter wonderland. What had begun the night prior as a few errant flakes and a strong breeze had grown into a full-blown blizzard. The wind whipped tiny flurries of snowflakes around, creating tiny tornadoes that Sam could not help but grin at. The world had taken on a fuzzy hue, the sky blotted out by thick, gray-white clouds that seemed to extend from the sky to the earth. She could just see the Impala, parked crookedly in a spot in a half in front of their room, but it was difficult to see anything much further than that.

A bolt of lightning arced across the grim sky, followed closely behind with a sharp crack of thunder. Sam jerked away from the window, jumping nearly out of her skin as she stumbled into the chair closest to the door. Outside the storm raged but it was, now, an entirely different kind of storm. A howling wind drove the sudden downpour against the window in sheets, rattling the window in its frame and surprising a gasp out the Winchester.

Just as suddenly as the storm had begun, it was over and silence once again claimed the room. Breathing raggedly and terrified to move lest she cause some other insane shift in the weather, Sam leaned forward just enough to catch a glimpse out the window…where a snowstorm was continuing to blanket the world in white. The flu, she decided as she flipped the switch on the heater and tried to ignore the shaking in her hands. The way she was feeling, that freak occurrence with the weather. A hallucination caused by her fever and exacerbated by her exhaustion. She wondered what time it was and whether it would be too soon to wake Dee. Absently she brought her hand up to her neck to rub away her headache and was surprised to find her fingers brushing something that felt like a bruise near her ear. 

 

Frowning Sam shuffled off in the direction of the bathroom, gently prodding and poking the area most sensitive behind her ear. She frowned as she pressed gently on the spot and felt a hard lump under the skin. Sam closed the bathroom door behind her, flicking on the switch and blinking until her eyes adjusted. Squinting past the too bright fluorescent bulb, Sam angled her neck and body so that she could better see her neck on her left side, just below the hairline, and nearly against her spine. She hadn’t even reached the epicenter, it seemed, as she glanced at a scabbed over area the size of a dime. The bruise, however, was clearly visible against the paleness of her skin. So dark it appeared black, it radiated out from the wound itself in a nearly perfect circle, spidery tendrils snaked away from the center of the wound to reach the base of her hairline and down almost below her shirt.

What the hell had happened? And why couldn’t she remember anything? Her head pulsed with that thought, stomach heaving as the world shifted and tilted around her. She wasn’t sure which was worse; knowing she was forgetting something important or feeling as though she would pass out any second. 

“Aww, Sammy not feeling well?” Sam jerked away from the mirror, hackles raised as she whipped around to face the wall opposite the sink. Behind her she gripped the cool porcelain of the sink, knuckles whitening under her hands as the devil himself sauntered towards her, grinning the grin of the insane.

“What- How…How the hell did you find me, Lucifer?”

“I TOLD you, Sammy; you are like a beacon in the night. My other half, my shining vessel of perfection. I could find you anywhere.”

“That’s not possible,” She hissed, doubling over in pain as her pounding headache became a thunderclap migraine. “You aren’t here, you can’t be here; you don’t know where I am!” She could smell him, she was sure of it. Could feel his ice slipping over and around and through her warmth, bringing her down to his temperature by his sheer presence. She didn’t need to look into his face to feel the heat of his gaze. But her ribs, Dee’s ribs; they were invisible to heaven’s vanguard; no more a shining beacon than a rock was a mountain. Yet there he stood, watching with eyes glowing as she dropped to her knees and curled in on herself, the pain in her head turning her vision first white and then black.

And then she woke up.

Breathing heavily, eyes swiveling wildly in her head, Sammy bolted upright through a cloud of cobwebs as she fought off the remaining vestiges of sleep. Adrenaline pulsed through her body, heart fluttering and hands shaking at her sides. Nearly a full minute passed before she regained her breath and was able to calm her heart enough to have a coherent thought.

“So real.” She murmured through chapped lips and a throat that stung and burned as she spoke. 

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Her lungs ached, chest heavy and limbs sore. She reached her hand from beneath the covers and ran it through her hair, pushing her hair from her forehead and alerting her to the raging fever she now had. Dee continued to sleep in the second bed and the shades at the window remained parted where she had left them. Sam had a feeling, as she slid her way from bed with a wince, that she wouldn’t be surprised by the weather. As the younger Winchester made her way up to the window she couldn’t fight the sinking feeling of dread settling in her belly; the blizzard was going just as strongly as she remembered. What this meant for her dream, or what she was fairly sure was a dream, Sam wasn’t sure. What she WAS sure of, however, was that being on her feet made her feel infinitely worse.

Groaning, Sam made her way back over to the bathroom, shuffling and wincing with every movement. She spent eons waiting for the water to heat to the point where she would usually find it intolerably scalding before she slid in. It was one hell of a flu she seemed to have caught; her body ached, no HURT, and her head was pounding. The steam eased the burning in her lungs, clearing her suddenly blocked sinuses and warming away the chill that seemed to have settled in her core. Hallucination or fever dream…Fever, sore throat, aches… It was the flu. A bad one, yes, but still just the flu. It was as she was contemplating this that Sam heard a frantic knocking on the bathroom door. Swallowing a couple times, she responded.

“Y-Yeah? Dee?” She winced; her voice sounded worse than she’d originally thought.

“Christ, Sammy, open the door.” With a tiny frown adorning her face, Sam fumbled with the lock for a moment or two before managing to unlock the door. Dee shoved her way inside the moment the door was open and froze, staring Sam down with an intensity that caused the tiny hairs at the back of Sam’s neck to rise.

“How…did you sleep, Sammy?” Sam blinked, eyes shifting to the left as she contemplated the pros and cons of telling her sister that she’d dreamed her first few moments of consciousness but settled for a shrug, pointing to her throat when she didn’t speak.

“Oh…Sammy, are you sick?” Dee’s voice sounded incredulous and Sam huffed; yes it was unusual for her to get sick but the time did not seem appropriate for her sister to be poking fun. Before she could attempt to form an some sort of comeback, Dee had crossed the small distance between them and was reaching up to place the back of her hand against her forehead. If the immense spidery bruise remained, her sister did not seem to react to it.

“Holy- Sammy, you’re burning up! I’ve never felt you this hot before; get back into bed. Cas should be by soon with updates or whatever. We’ll see if we can get him to work some mumbo jumbo on you, eh?” All the while she was herding Sam back towards the bed, turning down the covers and shoving her in before effectively tucking her in. The younger Winchester barely stifled her desire to roll her eyes, opting instead to cough until her lungs ached, wheezing and gasping, unable to catch her breath. Dee had started suiting up, layering her way to snow-readiness. Amidst her coughing, Sam sat up, leaning against the headboard as Dee gathered up her keys and zipped up her waterproof winter boots.

“Dee?” She finally managed as her sister snatched up her car keys. “Where are you going?” Dee turned, grabbed something from the table and tossed it to Sam who caught it without thinking; glancing down at her hands she saw the remote for the TV and she frowned.

“Just watch some TV or something, sleep, whatever. I’m going to go find some food, coffee, tea, whatever we need to stock up on. We don’t have much here and that storm’s supposed to get worse.”

“Well just…just be careful, okay? It looked pretty bad out there already.” Dee nodded and waved before flicking the heat on and leaving, slamming the door behind her as she left. Sam listened until she heard the Impala roar to life before finally turning her attention to the TV. Once she managed to turn it on, she flipped from channel to channel, ignoring the sitcoms and the news. It wasn’t until she stumbled on an old episode of The X-Files that she stopped, flopping over onto her side and watching with her mouth parted, nose worthless, the exploits of Mulder and Scully. It reminded her, vaguely, of her own life and had always been a comforting show. It had always been a source of great delight for Sam, something she could relate to. She’d even caught their dad watching once or twice.

At this thought she chuckled which led to another coughing fit, which led to her wondering if Dee would think to get any sort of cold medicine. She sighed, leaning back against the headboard, watching as Mulder ran from something through some thick foliage, Scully nowhere to be seen. She smiled as she started to drift, hoping Dee would remember-

“Aw, what, the GREEN tea, right Sammy? I mean, she wouldn’t be your sister if she forgot now would she?” Instantly she was awake, bolting upright from her slouched position. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, eyes wide and face filled with a horror that simple words could not describe as she took in the ever-cocky form of Lucifer leaning against the television.

“You’re not here right now. There’s literally no way you are here right now, Lucifer, and I am just dreaming. Hallucinating. Going crazy, whatever, but you are not here.” He chuckled and pushed away from the wall nearest the TV, sauntering over to stand at the foot of the bed. He leaned forward, that infuriating smile lighting up his calm eyes, body language cool and collected as he pressed his hands against the bed. Sam nearly vomited as she felt the bed dip under the weight he applied and tried to imagine herself shifting in her sleep to produce that sensation. She seemed incapable of movement as the Morningstar began to crawl towards her, Nick’s form moving lithely and with a grace befitting the Devil himself. Fear illuminated her eyes as Sam’s throat swelled shut; he wasn’t here to hurt her, to make her scream for mercy as he’d so often threatened?

“No, sweet Sammy, I’m not going to hurt you. Not yet anyway. So, how long do you think Dee will be gone for? Do you think we have enough time to watch a few episodes? Really BOND before she gets back?” His grin turned lascivious as he moved with that disturbing cat-like ease, sliding over the bed, widening his legs and arms to straddle her. She wanted to move, tried to move, was terrified to find her body unresponsive as he brought his face close to her own, nose inches from her cheek, forked tongue darting out from between just-parted lips.

“Samantha, I believe you are having a night mare.” Sam jerked away, body all at once her own as she thrashed and fought with everything she had against the Devil above her whose voice seemed suddenly to be Cas’s.

“SAMANTHA, PLEASE CALM DOWN I DO NOT WISH TO HARM YOU.” She froze, unable to move her arms. Standing above her, calm hands holding her arms at bay, was Castiel. His eyes were wide, mouth set in a grim line, body tense and ready to move lest she launch herself at him. And for a moment, she simply lay there, legs twisted in the blankets around her.

“…Cas?” She croaked, lowering her arms as he released her and trying to push herself back up into a sitting position. She struggled until Cas wrapped an arm around her and hoisted her up. “Is Dee back?”

“Not yet, Samantha. What did you see?” His eyes narrowed as his gaze floated up and down her body, assessing injuries that were not visible to the naked eye.

“I…I saw…” She swallowed; knowing quite suddenly that was she was experiencing was not solely her own mind. “I saw Lucifer, Cas. Twice, now. I-He was here. Standing right over there…Talking. Just …just talking.”

“Did he attempt to determine your location?”

“…No…” She paused, worrying her lower lip as her gaze slipped to the side. That exhaustion was back, heavy and overwhelming. Tears welled behind closed lids, fury and sorrow mingling to form an overflow of emotion. Her headache was worse than ever before.

“Cas what’s wrong with me?” For a long while there was silence, and it was only by peeking out behind mostly closed eyelids that Sam was saw he had not left. No, he was simply… standing there. Staring at her face with some unfathomable expression.

“CHRIST IT’S COLD OUT THERE!” Both angel and Winchester nearly leapt from their skins as Dee slammed her way back into the room, kicking the door closed behind her and stumbling the short distance to the table, depositing multiple paper bags into the chairs and onto the table itself. “Oh! Didn’t know you were here, Cas. You fix up Sammy, yet?”

“Deanna I don’t think-“

“I mean, jeez look at her; no offense, Sammy but you look pretty awful.”

“Deanna, I think we should speak, please. For a moment.”

“No worries, Cas, I’ll tell her,” Sam managed, alternating between shuddering and wiping beads of sweat from her brow. “Dee, I’ve been hallucinating.” She paused, watching as Dee stiffened by the door where she was currently stripping free of her snow-covered clothes. That exhaustion, that undeniable sense of sinking, was beginning to grow stronger. Her eyelids were heavy and she desperately wanted to sleep.

“I saw Lucifer this morning…in the…in…” She forced a swallow, arms giving out and depositing her back onto the bed. The world around her twisted and turned, inverting itself and Sam was so sure she was going to vomit. And then it was gone. The world. All of it. And she was lost, adrift in the sea of unconscious, blissful nothing.

Her body’s shuddering grew intense and it was only Castiel’s alarm that drew Dee to Sam’s side just in time to see her begin seizing. It was worse than the lake this time, her body bowing to the point where only the back of her head and her heels remained on the bed. It took both of them to hold her safely still for the nearly three minutes that she was in the throes of a seizure. When finally her body returned to equilibrium, the Sammy Dee had just been speaking with was gone. What remained was a body, living just on the brink of death with not a trace of light left inside.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to those still reading and enjoying. Thanks guys! It's been rough in the creative part of my brain and the random bits of positivity I am receiving are the gentle pushers that have helped me get this out. Comments and kudos loved and constructive criticisms are always accepted. Hope you enjoy!

Just outside the storm raged. Rain fell in heavy, thick sheets, obscuring vision and making it difficult to see more than a foot or two in the elemental din. It had been building for what felt like ages, the air heavy and thick and pregnant. Like waiting for the breath just after delivery, the air held enough promise to make a grown man weep. And when it broke, the storm was cacophonous in its’ fury, as though even it had been made to wait. Thunder rolled through the world, echoing off of everything and claiming what had once been silent and calm for its’ own; lightning led the way, crackling and sizzling through the sky. It destroyed trees and set fires as though it were a creature only just let loose from a cage that had barely contained it. It blinded many and terrified a handful but captivated all as they watched in awe through steaming windows.

It was the lightning which woke her, its’ sharp crackle of electricity searing her eyes behind closed lids and jerking her violently from her deep, dreamless sleep. Thunder followed almost instantaneously on the heels of the searing bolt, a furious rumble that began with a bang so intense it shook her to the bone before it tapered off into an angry murmur.

Confused and half-asleep, the Hunter attempted to sit up, hissing as she was forced back into a prone position, panicked and furious to find herself restrained. Her body retaliated, cramps and waves of pain sought her every limb and left her nearly immobilized. She sought some sort of release from the spasms now wracking her body, forcing herself to stretch and move her limbs within the bonds. Moments passed and the pain ebbed, leaving her panting and with a light sheen of sweat along her brow. As she lay, prone and worn out, she realized that she had no idea where she was. The restraints, two at her ankles and two at her wrists, felt awfully familiar to those in Bobby’s detox room. She waited as patiently as she was able until the next bold of lightning struck, illuminating the small room she was being held in. 

For just a moment she was flooded with relief. Of all the places she might be, Bobby’s detox room was not one of them. The room had the feel and (she sniffed) the smell of a hospital. Craning her neck and twisting around, Sam saw that she was in a bed; sheets bundled up around her feet. The head of her bed was pressed against a wall opposite the door. A set of cabinets and a counter lined the adjacent wall on her left. Shifting, she turned to face the right and saw what looked like a window seat. Above the seat was a window, huge and offset only by a set of curtains, lying still and dead in the dark, framing the edges of the window. Beyond that, Sam could see a small table set against the wall directly across from the bed beside the door and. She assumed, could she see properly, that the floors would be linoleum, the ceiling either that popcorn-painted whitewall or foam tiles. With the exception of the window seat, the room was a stereotypical hospital room.

The restraints were a surprise, however. The last thing she remembered was having a fever and feeling ill; surely they wouldn’t have needed to restrain her? She closed her eyes against the rising panic she felt building within her, swallowing back the bilious taste in her throat as all the possible variations of how she came to be here. She fidgeted in her restraints, belly filled with tight, coiled anxiety. Incapacitated and unable to do so much as to brush away a particularly frustrating strand of hair from her nose, Sam contemplated her options.

“Okay,” She murmured aloud. “Okay. Okay how did we get here? That’s step one.” Sam’s hands clenched and relaxed as she spoke aloud.

“The motel. It was- It was snowing.”

A vision, so sharp and painfully clear flashed through her mind and, for a moment, she saw a snowstorm where now there was a torrential downpour. She gasped, arching off the bed as her mind became blank and her vision whited out, pain lancing through her body.

“Sei-seizure? I’m having seizures?” She gasped, beads of sweat gathering on her brow. Confusion, exhaustion, foggy thoughts, and restraints; everything pointed to seizures. Sam relaxed; she wasn’t in the middle of withdrawal, she wasn’t being punished, and she was being treated. Her gaze drifted towards the window where outside the storm continued to rage, the wind whipping torrents of rain against the glass. Occasionally the rumble of thunder and crackle of lightning punctuated the sounds of rain and she found this soothing. Whereas Dee had always been a restless sleeper during inclement weather, terrible weather was when Sam slept the best. It reminded the younger Winchester that nature had always and WOULD always run its’ course.

Sam could not help but call out for help, shivering and shaking without the warmth of her blanket. She allowed herself to fall into the stereotypical patient mold, demanding help then pleading for it, all for nearly ten minutes before finally ceasing. Throat hoarse, Sam slammed her head back into the mattress, grumbling and squirming in an entirely child-like display of irritation. Ears straining, Sam listened for some semblance of activity in the hallway, hoping for the scuff of a shoe on tile or the squeak of gurney wheels. Instead she heard the faint echo of something unrecognizable; garbled, muffled sounds drifting in between the sounds of the storm.

A quick glance showed her that there was no nurse call button anywhere nearby and no matter how she stretched her limbs she couldn’t even cover her feet with the sheet. A frustrated whoosh of air escaped her mouth as she did what she could to force her pillow back beneath her head with a few inventive shifts of her head and neck.

Feeling somewhat fatalistic about the whole situation, Sam tried to take comfort in the fact that at least her neck would not ache quite so much when she awoke. The bit of hope she’d clung to that someone would come to check on her was beginning to dissipate as her eyelids grew heavier. There were a myriad of things to be concerned with; a million questions without answers. Still, she had the rain. Waves of downpour struck the window, as regular as the tide and with the aide of the weather it took only a few minutes for her to drift back into a dreamless sleep.

OoOoOoO

“Alright Sam, are we feeling better today?” Sam had already been half-awake, dozing and drifting in and out of sleep for almost half an hour by the time the orderly pushed open the door and flicked on the overhead lights. The harsh fluorescents stung her eyes, involuntarily forcing them shut. A moment or two passed, during which the orderly (female and young, judging solely off her chipper, southern-tinged accent), had continued bustling about the room.

“Come on now, Sammy, I know you’re awake! You ain’t an actress of any kind.” A laugh, more movement, and then the woman was hovering over Sam’s face, the actions felt more than seen as Sam slowly blinked away the lights. “Come onnnn now, Samantha! You gotta get up! I saved you some of that rice puddin’ stuff you like so much but it won’t be there forever.”

Sam was confused, frustrated as her eyes refused to focus. She followed the woman’s movements as she began undoing the straps at her ankles, head bent over her task.

“Jo?” She blurted out the name as her vision came into focus. The hair, the eyes, the nose the chin the jaw… But the eyes were wrong. Her eyes were green; a green so bright and so clearly confused by the name she had just blurted out that the Winchester instantly felt herself relax. Sam began to notice other inconsistences. The orderly’s hair was shorter and a darker blonde, almost brown.

“Jeeeeeez Sammy, are they upping your dosage or somethin’? I’m hurt. You can’t even remember my name.” The woman sighed in exasperation as she rubbed at the ligature marks standing out in stark contrast against Sam’s pale skin.

“Don’t worry, Sam. I’ll talk to them about this; I’ve TOLD them that you’re gonna hurt yourself. I bet you had at least two seizures last night, judging on the color on your wrists. You feelin’ sore?” As though this was the key which unlocked the floodgates, Sam was finally able to respond.

“I-I’m sorry I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who you are, or why I woke up strapped to this table. I don’t know anything right now and I’m getting a little angry. I called for help last night for hours; don’t you guys make rounds or check up on the patients during the night?” The woman froze, fingers wrapped gently around Sam’s ankles as though she had intended to rub blood back into her limbs. After a moment or two the woman straightened, eyes wary and face lined with sadness as she looked down at Sam.

“Oh, Sammy… Not again. Come on, you gotta remember me, you just gotta. They’re gonna put you back,” She cut herself off, loosing a series of frustrated noises before sighing. “Listen, just…just keep it cool, okay? You usually remember everything before lunch, anyway so… I’m going to let you up, okay? I’m not even going to use a sedative! But don’t think I won’t.” She said, throwing a sharp look to the still prone Sam as she resumed rubbing the bruised skin. 

“I got a syringe full of that stuff at all times; you KNOW I do. So don’t you mess with me right now, okay, Sammy?” Realizing that she had dug herself into some kind of hole, Sam nodded, eyes wide and calculating as she watched the woman who looked like Jo but who was not Jo move from one ankle to the next. Seconds passed as the woman attempted to rub feeling back into Sam’s numb ankles. The orderly frowned and wrapped her arm around Sam’s shoulders when she had rubbed each limb and slowly, moving with the well-trained caution of a master, pulled Sam into a sitting position. Sam winced at the movement and found that her shoulders were so stiff she was nearly unable to lift her arms.

“Come on, then Sam. I’ll get you something for the stiffness once we’ve got some food in you. Now let’s go get some breakfast!” Sam nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and padded silently out of the room and down the hallway, following the orderly without engaging in any of the conversation the woman was trying to have. The woman seemed happy enough to chatter alone as they walked. Now that she was standing and could see herself more clearly in the light of day she saw that she was dressed in what looked like scrubs. They were sky blue with white trim along the lining. Just before leaving, the orderly had offered her a pair of what were like slippers but sturdier, meant to be worn as shoes. These too were white, and surprisingly comfortable. The clothes fit well and were as comfortable as the slippers. None of these things made her feel safe. Worse yet, it was as though she had walked these halls before. Everything from the smell to the color of the floor tiles felt too familiar.

Sam frowned as they rounded a corner; she’d been in hundreds of hospitals in her life and each hospital had always had similar layouts. The halls and rooms always looked the same, they had always had that same sickening antibacterial smell, and had always served the same god-awful food. 

The sinking feeling in the pit of her belly had solidified and Sam knew she had been here before. The moment of déjà vu passed as they rounded yet another corner, replaced almost instantly with horrified confusion. Sam had assumed that she was leading her to some sort of mess hall, a place perhaps where she could get some information, make a phone call, talk to someone in charge.

Instead what she found as she rounded the corner was a group of people dressed in the same attire she currently wore. Some were standing, some sitting and playing board games. Some-some were wandering in circles. Some were mumbling and twitching their hands as though there were flies or gnats buzzing about their faces. Many were just staring. Whether sitting or standing, the ones who stared carried both a vacant and sad look about them, as though they’d given up hope and weren’t even aware that they’d made that choice.

“What the hell,” She murmured, catching a dirty look from the woman who was not Jo.

“Language, Sammy! You know how that upsets everyone. Come on now; go sit down and I’ll bring you some food, okay? We were a little late, so we missed the meal period but I’m sure I can rustle something up.” The orderly brushed Sam’s arm and wandered away, leaving Sam to stand among a group of strangers who appeared to have lost control of their faculties. Her sharp eyes swept the crowd and she was unsure if she was more or less disheartened to see that she recognized none of the faces. Sam’s eyes narrowed, mouth parting ever so slightly in something like confusion, mind working to make sense of what she was seeing as the friendly orderly wandered off and through a door that required a keycard to open. There were tables and chairs scattered around the room and just beside the door, a giant viewing window with another set of orderlies staring out behind it. And for quite some time she simply stood there, staring like so many of the others around her.

It hit her like a ton of bricks knocking the breath out of her, making her light-headed, dizzy as all the pieces finally came together.

This was not a hospital. Or, at least, not the sort of hospital she had initially believed it to be.

Sam’s face contorted, something like rage and terror and hysteria all culminating there as something inside cracked, a hairline fracture, down the center. Before she knew what she was doing, Sam strode purposefully over to the observation bubble beside the door the orderly had walked through. She stared, her fury visible in her bared teeth and wide eyes. Open palmed, Sam began to slap at the glass, fighting for the attention of the two behind the bubble. When that didn’t work, she curled her hands into fists and starting to pound on the glass. She began to scream, demanding attention, ordering someone to bring her the one in charge.

Behind her she could just sense the other residents beginning to stir, many of them joining Sam’s screams with their own. She didn’t care. She watched as the woman on the other side of the glass tried to tell her to calm down and still she continued on. Blood appeared on the wall and Sam was aware that it was her own and that she was hurt but she attacked the wall with everything she had, feeling none of the pain as she allowed whatever horrible thing was running her show to take control. Behind her, the other occupants of the room had moved beyond curious and excited and were beginning to frenzy. Their shouts and exclamations sometimes mirrored Sam’s but mostly were nonsensical and difficult to separate in the increasing din of the common room.

It wasn’t until the security guards, approaching from behind with a needle full of a strong sedative, managed to take hold of the Winchester that she really began to fight. She bucked and screamed and flailed and, for the first time she could ever remember, allowed her fear and her terror to take hold, to run with her. The pinprick of the needle was followed closely by the icy rush of the sedative sweeping through her veins and then…

Nothing.

OoOoOoOoO

Samantha Winchester woke in the same place she’d started, strapped down on an uncomfortable bed, windows rattling as the wind and the rain continued to lay siege to the hospital. Groggy. She was groggy. And tired. Bone wearily, exhaustedly tired. This time, however, she was somewhat comforted to find that there had been a small table lamp brought in and it was, currently, on. She found herself drifting almost immediately back into sleep despite the light, and it was only the realization that she was not alone in the room that snapped her awake. Attempting to shift to sit up, even a little, met with such a painful resistance that she could not help but gasp as pain shot through her limbs and jolted in her head. Through the remaining effects of the sedative Sam was aware of a monstrous headache, pounding and throbbing in the back of her head.

If she was in fact in a mental institution, as she now believed herself to be, then certainly she had not made a positive case for herself by having a breakdown in the common room. What had happened back there? Sam had no idea; she couldn’t remember ever losing control of herself so thoroughly before. Fear, perhaps? In any case, there was still the question of the other person in the room. Sam imagined the sweet Jo look-alike coming around to huff at her and she sighed.

“I know you’re there, just-just get it over with. Whatever examination or questions you have for me, just get them out of the way. I can’t sleep knowing there’s someone here, alright?” Inwardly she winced at her own voice; it was rough and worn, and she could feel the pain in her torn up throat as she used it. At first she was met with silence. A stillness both preternatural and vacuous and suddenly Sam was sure that whatever they were pumping into her was causing this elaborate and altogether surreal hallucination. She was in a hospital; at least that much she could and would believe. She remembered feeling sick, so sick. And the fever, she could remember that as well. So yes; Sam Winchester could believe that she was currently in a hospital. But a mental institution? Now that really WOULD be insanity. A smile curved across her lips as she began to drift off.

“Guess I can’t really fool you, Sam.” That voice. “Not that I’ve ever been able to fool you. Not really.”

“You’re not real.” Sam growled, limbs taut and straining against the bonds. The aches in her limbs exploded into red-hot pain as she twisted and pulled at them, struggling to see behind her.

“Oh? Not real?” So condescending, the smirk felt as his voice drifted in from behind her. She tilted her head up as far as she was able but gasped and jerked forward as pain lanced down her neck and radiated out into her shoulders. Her muscles gave out and she slumped to the bed, panting quietly and shaking. The meds. Whatever she was on had to be causing these hallucinations. Before she could begin pulling at the straps holding her back she felt a pressure on her shoulders and just beside her neck a chill that was anything but weather related.

“Sorry to break it to ya, Sammy…” He murmured, breath ghosting against her ear. “But I’m as real as you. While we’re here, at least.” The pressure at the top of her shoulders slid down, his touch as icy as a winter storm. Sam shivered when his fingers reached her skin and again when she felt his face against her own. Incapable of moving, the hunter could do little more than turn her head from his, the cords on her neck standing out against her skin at her strain. She was even more horrified when he brought his nose and face closer, nuzzling at her neck and breathing in as though smelling her.

“You smell like heaven, Sammy.” He murmured, lips at her ear. Sam froze, incapable of responding as he nuzzled the delicate skin just below her ear. She sucked in her breath, body tensing at the sensation; the tip of his nose was icy, as though he had just come inside from the snowy tundra. The breath ghosting along her neck was almost chilly and she could not help the shiver that started at her fingertips and ended at her toes.

He chuckled and then his presence was gone, physically at least. His words, however, seemed to linger. Floating in the room nearly as physical as his touch had seemed.

The touch that had felt so achingly sinful, so delicate, so needful.

Her belly cramped and she groaned, fists clenched and toes curling as she fought a sudden wave of nausea. Time passed in the way that it always does and at some point during the night, the hunter drifted off into sleep.

OoOoOoOoO

Her first indication that it had not all been a dream were the lights, bright and sudden and demanding her attention through her groggy haze.

“Samantha.” A demand for attention, with no room to deny the authority. She shuddered and slowly Sam made her way back to reality and conscious thought. Reality hurt, oh boy did it hurt; the hunter could not remember a time in her recent past where there was so much pain and soreness after a hunt. A new type of pain had surfaced in her stomach; her abdomen reflected her stomach’s attempt to empty itself in that painful sort of way that always followed getting sick. She groaned, trying to ignore the feeling of something long dried on her cheeks.

“Ahh, I see your ears are at least functioning… Nurse, check her wrists and ankles, it looks like she was struggling during the night. Possible seizure… And how are we feeling Samantha?” That voice…it was as familiar as that orderly’s had been, the one who looked and sounded exactly like Jo, when Sam had first come around. A few difficult swallows and an attempt to open her eyes later and Sam finally tried to speak.

“Confused…Hurt…Everything…hurts…” She managed before her throat closed back up and she groaned. Her head was positioned up and her left eyelid was forced open and a bright light entered her vision. She hissed, tried to pull away, to protect herself from whatever they were about to do, her body tensed and ready to spring free like a coil being held down by the force of many. A few seconds later and the light was removed from one eye and moved the second, leaving her left eye unable to focus, spots of light still littering her vision. Her right eye was released faster than her left eye and she spent the next several seconds trying to blink her vision back to normal; it was wholly reminiscent of the uber-vamps and their den and she suddenly snapped to the realization that she had not seen Dee since waking here. Her struggles began anew, both the doctor and nurse standing now just out of her view.

“I don’t understand what’s happening or…or where I am. Let me up, right NOW. Even-even here I have to have at least a phone call, right? I need to get ahold of my sister, damn it!”

“Now calm down there, Sammy.” The man cooed, sliding back into her sight, a syringe held in his hand. Any reaction, any words she might have had held waiting in the wings died on her tongue as she stared, unabashedly up at the man standing over her. The syringe was tiny and as he tied off her arm with a small piece of rubber tubing she managed to grasp that he meant to draw her blood. This, even, fell to the wayside as her eyes grew impossibly wide and her throat clicked, unable to draw enough moisture there to speak.

“B-B…” She stuttered. “Bobby? Bobby what the…what are you doing here?” The man frowned, glancing up from her arm where he was rubbing an antiseptic pad along the crook of her arm in preparation to draw blood.

“Nurse, she’s delirious…She’s gone back to calling me Bobby.” He sighed and inserted the needle with a gentleness that still managed to surprise the Winchester. “This is some major backsliding; we may need to get Nick in on this.” The casual way he spoke of his superior meant, to the uncomfortable Samantha, that she was not meant to listen nor to understand what he was speaking about, nor whom he was referring to. In the meantime, she could not remove her eyes from the man hovering over her. Her earlier encounter with the orderly she had believed to be Jo was beginning to seem less and less like a coincidence. This was confirmed as the nurse to whom Bobby (for she no more knew what he went by than what the orderly called herself), stepped into her sight and revealed herself to be the host body that Ruby had inhabited, all dark hair and calm, worried eyes. That urge to vomit rose once more and it was all she could do to repress it.

“Get this checked with the lab; I’m worried that we’ve increased her dosage too quickly…it would account for her sudden and intense backsliding.” He leaned over and brushed a lock of her likely matted and tangled hair from her cheek, a look of genuine concern on his face. Sam felt all the more sick as her eyes traced every wrinkle, every plane, ever dip and curve of his face. Everything was spot on, accurate, correct. This was BOBBY standing above her, taking her blood, keeping her strapped down. She very nearly asked how long ago she’d fallen off the wagon but, further down on some subconscious level, it struck her as a bad question to ask. Her face contorted, pain and anguish overwhelming what little calm she had left at this point as she watched Bobby watching her, his own face a carefully calculated map of worry and concern hiding his calculating thoughts beneath. It was so entirely un-Bobby and Bobby at the same time that Sam wasn’t sure which emotion to give in to.

“Bobby, come on, this isn’t funny. I…know why I might be here, okay? I get that. But come ON, Bobby. You can’t…can’t just pretend you don’t know me. I mean, know ME, okay?” She murmured, catching and holding his gaze where she couldn’t catch and hold his hand. Bobby sighed, setting down the clipboard and pen he’d been using moments prior on the set of cabinets behind him. For almost a minute his eyes searched her own, eyebrows knitting in something similar to, but not quite reaching, concern. Her heart sank; as much as her eyes tried to tell her that this was Bobby, she knew different. Before she could try to say anything else, a woman, the nurse, stepped into her field of vision and she all but snarled at the woman who, in return, simply narrowed her eyes and ‘harumphed’, as though Sam’s reaction was irritating but not altogether new.

“You’d think after so long she’d stop hating me so much…” The woman who was Ruby but who was not Ruby, muttered to no one in particular as she slid from Sam’s sight and proceeded to take notes (if the scratching of pen on paper could be any indication of her activities). Sam was, quite sadly, unable to refrain from a heavy rolling of her eyes; even in whatever universe she’d found herself in Ruby was still a drama queen. As though this simple thought was a catalyst, Sam suddenly understood just what was happening and, visibly, she relaxed. Her mind. This was all in her mind. From the irrational and overwhelming fear she’d felt earlier to the staff who looked like people from her life, they were all in her head. Which, now that she was considering it, made Lucifer’s sudden appearance the night prior significantly more relevant especially since the last couple of times she’d seen the fucker he’d been messing around with her dreams. Having reached this conclusion, Samantha relaxed and kept quiet, saying nothing more and refusing to respond to anything “Bobby” said. All the while her mind whirred and clicked away; if she were essentially caught in a dream she assumed it to be some sort of coma she’d fallen into. Likely a supernatural one. And if that was the case then perhaps there would be a way to escape, just as supernaturally as she’d entered it. Playing into the theme of the dream was not something she would do, however, she would not actively fight against it.

“Well, Sammy, I’m gonna get this blood off to the lab and we’ll see what’s goin’ on, alright? In the meantime, I’m gonna send Doctor Alonsei along; you two always get along so FAMOUSLY. He’ll set you right, get you out and about, m’kay?” Though Sam nodded in response she did not believe he saw it; his face was aimed down at the clipboard he’d slyly reached for while Sam had had her epiphany, a pair of glasses having materialized onto his face as he scribbled and scratched at the papers on the board. All the while Sam’s mind drifted, thoughts of how best to break free taking up the majority of her cognitive thought; she figured, first, she would need to determine just what sort of a mind trap it was… All thoughts pointed to something Lucifer concocted. It didn’t have the same feel as a Djinn trap…the lack of an idyllic setting and the fact that she was aware at this point that she was simply in her mind made it seem like a nearly impossible choice. She frowned, paying little attention as “Bobby” and “Ruby” left the room empty and quiet. Though likely something related to Lucifer (his appearance the night prior made that seem the MOST likely choice), it had the same feel as the demon blood. When she was withdrawing. And at the same time, it didn’t. She was feeling some of the symptoms, she supposed. That constant ache for it never seemed to go away. She still felt like she was on fire, as though she were running a fever though neither “Bobby” nor “Ruby” had said anything regarding it. The hallucinations on top of it all made her feel both nervous and twisty in the stomach. Unconsciously she’d begun chewing on her bottom lip, worrying at it as she worried over this problem in her mind, taking small bites and trying to consider it from every angle in an attempt to remain calm, remain calm…remain…calm…

“Good morning, Samantha.” Sam froze, closing her eyes and counting to ten. She had a feeling that, aside from seeing Dee herself appearing in this fucked up Wonderland of Horrors, she was unlikely to meet any other personalities (aside from her mother and father, and she was more than praying they wouldn’t make an appearance here) that would jar her so strongly. After what felt like long enough, Sam finally opened her eyes, heart aching as she watched one person she’d never expected to see again in any format slide smoothly into view.

“Jess…Jesse, what…” She murmured as she caught and held his gaze. His hair, always a little too long while they’d been together, was pulled back in a low ponytail with only a few strands escaping to frame his face. Dirty blond, his hair, with natural highlights from the sun led a surfer-like appearance to the lean, able-bodied man. His muscles were well defined but not over-bearing, something she’d approved of from the first moment she saw him to the moment he’d first playfully tossed her over his shoulder. Sam pushed past this particularly painful memory as she continued to study him, eyes roving with careful intent as she simultaneously compared what she saw to what she remembered and stored it all away for later analysis. A day or two of stubble, already growing into a beard framed his strong jaw and a straight nose that fit his equally strong features completed an altogether handsome face. But it was his eyes, sky blue and warm, dancing with delight as they met her own, that really broke her heart. A chocked sob tried to escape and she swallowed it back, pushing back the wave of sorrow at seeing his face here in this most twisted of locales. Seeing him again was as potent and as physically arresting as a punch to the stomach. Had she been standing, Sam knew she would have been doubled over in pain. As it was, she pulled and twisted once more at her wrist and ankle cuffs, muscles tensed despite the pain it caused as she ground her teeth together.

Whether through the physical displays of agitation were showing through or not, it seemed Jesse noticed that something was off. He frowned, eyebrows knitting up into a look of concern that, had her heart not already been shattered, would have destroyed it as waves of nostalgia and loneliness and hurt washed briefly over her. He set the clipboard that he’d carried in with him down and removed a pair of glasses she had not noticed were present from his nose.

“Sammy…what’s wrong? Ah jeez, was Dahlia here?” He frowned and let loose an exasperated sigh. He leaned forward and began to undo the restraints at her ankles. “She’s always messing with your mind; you know you can’t let her bother you too much.” He tutted, fingers brushing against the bruised skin at her ankles, applying just enough pressure to cause Sam to wince as he checked the extent of the marks.

“These things really did a number on ya, huh Sammy?” She shuddered, nearly imperceptible, as he leaned over to release her wrists; his smell…even his smell was the same. “Don’t worry; I’m gonna have a talk with your other doctors. There’s gotta be a better way to keep you safe than…” He trailed off as he released the final strap and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. With little sounds of encouragement Jesse lifted her from the table, taking care to move slowly as she winced with pain. Once she was sitting up and she appeared stable, albeit incapable of moving the majority of her body, Jesse or Doctor Alonsei or whoever this was leaned away and out of her extremely limited range of vision (neck too sore to even tilt to the side). For a second she tensed, panicked briefly by her inability to move, as the sounds of metallic objects jostling against one another reached her ears.

“Here, now.” His voice, so soft, back at her ear. Again she shuddered, gaze now directed down to see the cup of what looked like water held in his hand. Skeptically she directed her gaze at him, eyes narrowed in distrust. He laughed and pressed the glass into her open hand.

“YES it’s got something in it but it’s just something to help you relax. I just know how you don’t like taking pills and clearly our walk isn’t going to happen if you can’t even move.” Still she hesitated for fear of what drinking it might do to her. His tone was genuine but he was not real (as she had already firmly decided) and so she was finding it difficult to drink. It was cool in her hand, the condensation just beginning to form as a light fog around the edges and contours of the glass.

With a sigh that seemed to speak volumes, she brought the glass to her lips and downed it in three gulps. His applause and laughter was the first thing she heard before the glass was taken from her and his smile was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes and her heart was breaking all over again.

“See! I knew you could do it.” That playfulness. She stiffened when he reached an arm out to help her turn. His movements were slow, measured; it was as though she were glass and very likely to break with too harsh a breath. She hated to admit it, but she hoped the painkiller would kick in soon. Her thoughts turned to what sort of prison she was trapped in and just how real everything, including the pain, actually was. Sam was not aware when it was that Jesse eased a pair of those soled slippers onto her feet, though she managed to snap back into her current thoughts as he gently pulled her from the bed and onto her feet.

It was only through sheer force of will and a steady set of hands on her arms that she managed to keep her legs from buckling. Already she could feel the effects of the drugged water, easing the stiffness and the pain and turning it into something altogether light and airy and far away. It was still THERE, hovering at the edge of her steps and the twists of her arms as she shrugged the long housecoat on, but it remained in the background and for the first time since she’d awoken in whatever existence this was, she found herself grateful.

“Feelin’ a little better now, Sammy? You’ve had a rough couple of days, haven’t you? Well, we’ll get you some fresh air, some fresh fruit! Then you’ll be feelin’ as good as new. Especially once we get this medication thing figured out.” Some sagely nods and a gently placed arm around her shoulder and they were off, Sam shuffling and Jesse leading the way to parts unknown. Though her body was slow it felt as though her mind were racing.

From what she could remember of their limited experiences with mind traps, they tended to leave you stranded in a specific area. Perhaps, were she of the ambitious nature, it might be possible to break free of whatever this was if she moved herself from where the central location seemed to be. In the end, she figured, anything was worth a shot. What was the worst that could happen, she silently asked herself as they eased out into the common room and past the other shufflers. Death, she supposed. Death. The end. She’d been throwing that thought around a lot lately. And wouldn’t death be better than a mind trap? Or, if she were to be truthful with herself, wasn’t death better than Lucifer?

“Here we are, Sam! See, sunlight. You always perk right up in that sunlight, hmm?” His laugh was the same, warm and husky and so full of genuine delight. “And it’s not like we’ve had much of, right? I’m surprised we haven’t even been washed away with all that rain…and it looks like more’s on the horizon!” He pointed, bending just enough to make himself level with her, towards the sky in the distance where immense clouds, dark and rolling and ominous, awaited. He looked like a child, excited with the prospect and trying to drag her along with him. It had been one of the first things she’d noticed and one of the first things she’d fallen I love with when they first met.

It sickened her.

She remained silent, offering up a half-hearted nod and trailing along beside him as they wandered out beyond the shadow of the building and into a small courtyard, a large stone fountain serving as the centerpiece to an all-together peaceful looking clearing. A set of stone benches around the fountain completed the scene. Glancing off to the side, Sam could see that beyond the courtyard something like a flower garden opened up just outside. Sprawling green lawns and concrete paths seemed to lead around the grounds and, though Sam was limited in her range of view, she had a feeling they wrapped around the entire building. As did what looked like a large, barbed wire fence just barely visible from where she stood. Slowly a plan formed in her mind; it was rough, crude, not likely to succeed and yet it was the best she realized she was going to get. Time, it felt, was not on her side. The longer she lingered the worse things might get; Lucifer’s impromptu visit only made that feeling more intense.

When Jesse made to sit on the benches, Sam pulled a sad, pained face and looked longingly out towards the lawns. His eyebrows drew up in a look of concern, lips parting as though he were going to say something.

“I don’t…want to…sit. Yet. It might be…to hard to get…back up.” Sam interrupted, just managing a half smile. Jesse’s still parted lips formed an “o” of understanding and he pushed himself to his feet. With little more than his warning that her skin would be sensitive because of the medication and that they couldn’t stay in the sun for long, the duo walked free of the courtyard. Sam began instantly steering him towards the left, eyes scanning the building as she walked, trying to determine if there was any way someone might see and stop her before she had a chance to escape. Judging, she believed, from the outside of the building anyone who saw would still have to take the same route they had to reach her and by that time she’d be long gone.

Jesse was still talking, rambling in a not so unpleasant way about random things. The weather, sports, cooking, a book he’d just picked up. Soothing, really, and it made what she was about to do all the worse. About halfway out the path they’d walked, when they had reached the point where the fence was about as close as she would get, body tense and ready for action, she froze on the path. Jesse continued another pace or two before turning around, eyebrows knitting together once more in a look of confusion.

“Sam? Hey, Sammy you okay? Aw I knew this would be too much sun for you. Come on, we’ll just-“ Before he could continue, before he could lay on any thicker that false care that he so clearly had pasteurized for her sake, she struck. Hands laced together to form something like a club, she slammed her fists into the base of Jesse’s neck with as much strength she could muster. For approximately half a second Sam froze; he stood stock-still, swaying gently while Sam held her breath…and then he crumbled to the ground. His body was prone for perhaps another two seconds before she was off, racing as quickly as her still sore and aching body would allow her to, for the fence. The wind rushed against her face, cool and invigorating and a reminder of everything she stood to gain and loose. All of the possibilities rushed through her mind as she rushed across the field. In the distance it seemed the clouds were gaining ground, rolling through the sky and heading towards the facility with a speed that would have, under other circumstances, been shocking. A rumble, deep and imposing, was now audible to the Winchester’s ears as she stumbled across the still damp lawn. And if that dampness, soaking into her slippers (both of which she shed as she grew closer to the fence), felt realistic enough to make her shudder, she pretended not to notice.

Sam hit the fence just as she heard some sort of alarm going off in the distance, clanging and whooping as her escape was finally spotted. Gritting her teeth she began to climb, only vaguely thankful that it did not electrify her when she touched it. Her fingers found easy purchase in the loops though reaching the top presented a problem. Along the top of the fence was a double row of painful looking barbed wire. Gritting her teeth she maneuvered the overcoat off and managed to wrap it around her right arm without falling. A feat, she believed, worthy of a Winchester and certainly something she would have to later relay to Dee who was under the belief that little Sammy was getting soft in the belly.

A chuckle and a grunt and Sam was over, pain lancing her arms through the coat. As she set her foot down on the other side of the fence her foot slipped loose and took her body with it. With a muffled gasp and cry she was on the ground with no time to check for any serious damage. Through even the painkiller she’d been given she could not ignore the sharp and steady pain pulsing through her legs and stinging in her arms. There was no time. Struggling to her feet, staggering through the returning pain, Sam bolted from the fence.

She made it almost fifteen feet before pain exploded behind her eyes. For the first time in years she screamed, wailing as she was sure that she was being torn apart. It was so intense, so unrelenting; it forced to her to the ground where, writhing in pain, she could do little more than gasp and hope that it would stop. As though her wishes were fuel for the pain it intensified, whiting out her vision and taking her consciousness with her.

OoOoOoOoO

“Hey, she’s waking up.”

“Is she? Well that was faster than I thought it would be…”

“Didn’t Doctor Grino want to see her when she…?”

“Yes, yes. Let’s rouse her, then.”

Groggy. Sam was groggy. Groggy and confused and numb. Her mouth tasted wrong, her throat so dry it clicked when she tried to swallow. Her pain overall had somehow lessened, had ebbed as though she had been under for enough time for her wounds to begin healing. Trying to open her eyes was difficult but, with enough effort, accomplished. Thankfully the nurses or orderlies or whoever they’d been had left the lights dim, assuming correctly that her eyes would be sensitive to bright lights. She was not, however, surprised when they stepped into her view; Bobby and Jo, both looking frustrated but worried. She was, however, frustrated when Ruby slid into view. They murmured amongst each other, fanning out around her bed to surround her as she slowly but surely returned to the world of the living.

“Ahh, welcome back, Sammy!” Sam groaned and tried to tell them to stop calling her that but all she could manage was a strangled gurgling sound. Sam could not remember ever feeling so awful. What was worse than the pain, she thought, were the drugs. As she shifted on the bed she caught a brief whiff of alcohol then a familiar sting, a rush of ice through her veins and she was wondering how long it would take for it to hit her. Nausea rolled through her and she closed her eyes, fighting as the world spun around her. 

“How much did you give her…?”

“Oh, you know, the regular dose.” Even in this “world” Ruby was still a snarky bitch.

“…You realize she hasn’t eaten or had anything to drink, beyond the IV, in almost two days?” Two days? She’d been out for far longer than she’d even imagined. Sullen silence in response to Bobby’s question and Sam had to resist the urge to smirk as she was fairly certain that any sort of movement would cause her to explosively vomit the nothing in her belly. Ruby swore and Jo tutted and Bobby debated aloud the fact that yes, they HAD to move her because Doctor Grino would not wait much longer and he was a very busy man and yet the options on how to make this happen remained somewhat difficult. It was decided that they would use a wheelchair, move slowly, and simply explain what had happened once they’d arrived at his office. The fear that laced their voices in discussing this was not missed by the incapacitated Winchester.

“Just…Just get her some food for later, okay? We can’t delay this any longer; he’s going to be…upset.” Murmured agreements all around and Sam could not help but roll her eyes beneath her lids.

“Come on now, Samantha. We’ve let you sleep long enough. Doctor Grino, you remember Doctor Grino, right? He wants to see you.” Hands were at her back, shoulders and arms, lifting her into a sitting position amidst her groans and desire to be left alone. Sitting up brought with it the unsettling belief that she was sinking through the table and, despite her best efforts to sit up on her own, she found herself leaning against Bobby. Her amusement could not be denied; she was fascinated with the choice of personas to be found here. People who were, or who had been, important to her. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to see her sister or their angel here. She could only guess on the choice for the head physician.

Her contemplation was cut short as they began to move her, forcing her legs and arms and torso to move first off the table and then into a wheelchair which they had brought in for just this reason. Head lolling against her shoulders, Sam was unable to take in much of anything as they bustled around behind her. If she could at least force whatever these people were to stop pretending to be doctors perhaps things would start making a little more sense. And yet, it all seemed like too much work. She was tired despite the two days of apparent unconsciousness and fighting seemed pointless.

“Alright now, Sammy. Just a nice, short visit with Doctor Grino and you can rest, alright? We just need to make sure that you’re…okay. Okay?” Sam once again said nothing; it was clear that her escape attempt had done little more than make her position, whatever it had been, here in this “ward” that much worse. 

Though she wished she didn’t care, she wondered how Jesse was. If he was upset with her for what she’d done. Sam managed, after some deliberate effort, to lift her head up, clenching and unclenching her hands and curling her toes in an effort to maintain some sort of grasp on herself. They rolled through the common room, masterfully steering to keep from upsetting the other shuffling invalids and, as Sam watched and listened, they began to migrate (aided by a few nurses whose faces she was unable to see from her disadvantageous position) towards the adjoining hallways and clearing the room. Likely, judging from the dimmed lighting and the quick glances of the darkened windows (outside of which there appeared to be flashes of light), it was lights out in crazy town. This untoward thought had Sam cracking a wide, frightening smile from her moving seat. Numerous twists and turns later and the quartet was headed down what seemed to be a corridor with rows of offices on either side. Once again that overwhelming feeling of déjà vu assaulted her; she was sure, now, that she’d been here before.

“Here we are…” Jo murmured, clearing her throat behind Sam. The door read “Doctor Nick Grino” and for a moment it seemed too impossible, too improbably, that it was who she thought it was behind it. Surely it was her father, Cas, maybe even her grandfather. Some relevant male influence in her life that she had yet to encounter. Bobby stepped forward, clearing his throat and knocking on the door. A muffled voice on the other side invited them in and, gripping the arms of the wheelchair as though she might fly away if she did not, she was led inside.

“No fuckin’ way…” She slurred, baring her teeth in what was clearly a sneer.

“She’s…a little out of it, sir. Seems we may have overestimated the correct dosage of tranquilizer. But! No worries, she’ll be fine after a solid night of sleep. Do you want us to stay in case…?” Bobby was officially out of character; the sniveling, apologetic tone did not represent the man whose face he wore in a way that Sam felt was authentic.

“No, no. I think we’ll be fine, won’t we, Sammy?” Nods all around, it seemed, and with no more preamble than that, her trio of watchers was gone, shutting the door silently behind them.

“Fancy seein’ you here…Lucifer.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright!!! So I'm editing this chapter; when I originally posted I included what I felt was a very explicit sexy scene and after some time (and very little positive reaction) I have decided to retract that. I haven't been able to continue working on the rest of this because this chapter has made me feel embarrassed and unhappy. It was not a popular chapter and in fact most readers seemed to disappear from it so I don't think anyone will miss the scene. In any case, this chapter is essentially the same besides the heavy editing I'm about to do on that scene. Cheers!

Dee refused to believe Sammy was gone. She tried everything in the book and out of the book and the left of the book and even just underneath the book in an effort to wake her comatose sister. The hunter tried incantations, potions, prayer, and a few slaps that may not have been entirely for Sam’s benefit. It wasn’t until hours had passed that she began to realize that whatever this was, whatever had happened, she could not keep Sammy in the motel. If nothing else their lack of medical equipment and Dee’s inability to set up an IV would put Sam’s life into a more tangible danger than whatever they were already dealing with. It wasn’t until Cas returned, having been sent away the moment Sam had gone slack in order to find out what had happened, that Dee finally caved; Sam had been unconscious for almost five hours.

“What do you MEAN no one knows? How can no one know? That…that thing! In the lake! And now this? I mean, it’s gotta be connected to something bigger, right?” She hated the desperate sound of her own voice, that pleading tone that spoke more than the words did. 

“Lucifer; it’s GOT to be LUCIFER, Cas! I’ll go out now, right now, storm be damned and I’ll catch whatever the hell is swimming around in that lake.” She hated the way her hands shook and the way she could not stop herself from searching for some sort of hope in the angel’s eyes. For a short while he said nothing. He just…stared. Stared at Sam, pale and unresponsive as she lay on the bed, then at Dee. Her breath caught and for a moment, the world around her simply stopped. The panic she’d felt growing within her began to ebb slowly as the seconds ticked past. Yes, the fear remained. Fear that, perhaps, she had completely and utterly failed in protecting her sister. But the urge to panic, the bits of black hinting at the edge of her vision, were gone.

“I do not know, Dee.” He said, the words soft and gentle. He reached out to her, his hand coming to rest on the curve of her check, cupping her face and keeping her steady, holding her afloat as she fought to regain her equilibrium. It was warm, HE was warm, and his warmth sent something to her more cognitive thoughts. Her gaze slid from his eyes, so serious, to her sister.

“I’ve got to get her to the hospital.” Her voice was small, distant; weak and exhausted. Another wave of hatred washed over her and this she fought off as hard as she now fought her fury against this unknown assailant. Fury was hot, and it could keep her going, but it was rash and often led to poor decisions. Calm, cool, and collected-that was what she needed to be.

“You cannot go anywhere, Dee.” Dee’s eyes narrowed and her mouth opened and her fur bristled and just as she was about to tell him just where to stick his opinion, he leaned in and swallowed her words with his mouth. And yes he bumped her nose but it was sweet and chaste and for the first time in far too long she was rendered momentarily speechless. It was clear in his stiff arms and the desperation on his mouth that he was trying to bring her some sort of comfort and was altogether unaware if any of what he was doing was working. And there was something so utterly human in the action, in his reaction to her, and it was yet another thing to pile on this now towering stack of worries on her plate.

“It is snowing harder now.” He murmured, pressing his forehead to hers. “It is not safe. I will take her. Contact Bobby. I will return for you shortly.” He pulled away and she missed his warmth more than she should have. Watching him as he leaned over Sam, as he picked up her younger sister and cradled her in his arms, left her heart aching in a chest that felt so heavy she was sure it was filled with lead. He stood, Sam looking all too lifeless in his arms, and met her eyes. A brief, subtle nod, and he was gone and Dee was alone.

She sank down on the bed and for approximately two minutes she allowed herself to feel that panic she had forced down earlier, that horrifying hatred that she knew would not help her now. She allowed herself to break down because, she thought to herself, Sam needed her and Sam needed her thinking clearly and rationally. When her panic had run its’ course, Dee dashed some icy water on her face, kicked on the heater, and found one of the many phones in her own duffel. A few deep, calming breaths to steel her nerves and she flipped it open, fingers flickering through the few pre-programmed numbers before settling on Bobby’s. Before she could let herself think too hard on it, Dee was dialing.

“Deanna? Christ, what’s goin’ on? Its so late.” Bobby’s voice filtered in through the line and Dee shivered, wrapping her free arm around herself as she prepared to speak.

“Yeah… Bobby…some uh…crazy shit’s gone down…”

 

OoOoOoOoOoO

 

That smirk. Always, always that all-encompassing all-knowing, holier-than-thou smirk. She would have thought, having been exposed to it so many times now, that it would not have such an infuriating effect on her. That she would not have such a strong urge to gouge out his eyes and rip him apart with her bare hands. Sam was not surprised when she felt a wall of fiery, hateful rage wash over her. He sat behind a dark cherry-wood desk, the surface bright and shiny beneath the series of fluorescents lighting the room. His chair looked infinitely more comfortable than her own and it appeared that he was wearing a lab coat similar to the ones that Bobby and Jesse had worn which completed the whole ridiculous look. Around the room were commemorative plaques and on a bookshelf on the far end of the room were a series of small trophies and more books than she could easily count. Analyses of various psychoses, leather-bound novels of theology… Costume pieces, placed with care to complete the image Lucifer appeared to have settled into.

They were silent for an interminable length of time, Lucifer smirking his smirk and Sam glaring with enough heat to melt a brick wall.

“So. Running away didn’t work out quite the way you’d hoped, hmm?” He chuckled and if she weren’t so drugged up Sam was pretty certain she would have torn his throat out with her teeth.

“No, no, it did. Clearly it did, hence my continued incarceration and incapacitation.” A genuine laugh this time and somehow this grated more than the forced humor. With a creak of the chair Lucifer was standing, sauntering slowly around his desk to stand in front of her. He knelt down in front of her, all amusement lost in his eyes as he reached out, lighting quick, and gripped her chin. Sam could not help but bare her teeth at him, limbs so slow to react that he had already stood and stepped away from her by the time she had managed to raise her arms.

“The ‘drugs’ should wear off soon; I was checking for any damage.” An explanation? Since when did she merit an explanation?

“Oh, yeah, not worth as much if I’m damaged goods, right? Well you’ll just have to take it up with your little security team out there. By the way,” She said, voice dripping with sarcasm as her arms fluttered down to her lap. “Nicely chosen characters for your charade. So let me take a wild guess at how this works. I say the magic word, you let me out of here so you can have me, right?”

“You are correct in your assumption. However, I am surprised that you don’t want to ask me just where “here” is.” Sam huffed.

“Some kind of mind prison, I’d guess. Something like what the Djinn cooked up but altered, right?”

“Mmm, not exactly.” Sam’s gaze followed him as he stood up, hands behind his back, and began to pace slowly in front of his desk. “Fascinating, really, this place. I’d heard rumors, you know. But I never really thought something so complex could actually exist, let alone function without my knowledge.” He smiled, beatific and serene and again Sam was overwhelmed with the urge to tear out his eyeballs.

“If you wanna keep babbling feel free but, please, put me out of my misery first.” Lucifer’s smile widened and quite suddenly he looked like a small child who’s just discovered that when you slice a worm in half both ends still wriggle.

“Your mind is not the thing trapped here, Sammy.” She rolled her eyes though she was, in all honesty, quite curious about her current situation. Showing him any sort of interest was not something she intended to give the peacocking devil, however, and so she settled with irritation.

“No? Then, pray tell O Great and Merciful MORNINGSTAR, what is?”

“It’s your soul, Sammy. Your essence. The thing that, if twisted or destroyed or broken would shatter your resolve and dissolve you into a messy little pile of human goo. If you’ll pardon the somewhat unpleasant descriptive comparatives, of course.” What little humor Samantha had been fronting drained away instantly. Her face froze, eyes caught somewhere between widening and narrowing, jaw clenched so tightly it would be aching for hours after.

“Of all the sick jokes, Lucifer-“

“Joke? Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…” The sound of Sam’s creaking bones as she clenched her fists was not something easily ignored. 

“Do I seem the type to joke? Well, about something this IMPORTANT, I mean.” For the first time since this little encounter Sam seemed to lose her voice. Her thoughts stuttered to a halt and her mouth parted as though she were trying to speak.

“Speechless? The great Samantha Winchester? Why, I never thought I’d see the day.” She could hear the smirk, now, rather than see it. Her eyes, she was vaguely aware, had begun to glaze over as the lasting effects of drug-induced exhausted threatened to pull her under.

“Come on now, Sammy, stay with me here.” Sam jerked back, recoiling violently as Lucifer made a slow but steady approach, slinking back towards her at a pace that suggested his lack of worry. Legs numb, arms heavy, Samantha could not help but launch herself at him, fury and pain evident in her face.

"How DARE you, you sick BASTARD!" She cried, stumbling on her own feet as she crossed the divide between them. She was surprised, however, when she did not end up on the ground. Revulsion jolted through her gut as she forced her gaze up to meet the cool blue gaze of Lucifer; her hands arched into claws which dug into his sleeves as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Teeth bared in a look that was entirely territorial, Sam's mouth parted, vitriolic disgust waiting to burst free-

All forgotten as Lucifer's mouth descended upon hers.

Medically speaking, there are three separate stages of shock, though the types of shock range widely depending on the causes. Stage one, compensated or nonprogressive shock, stage two, known as decompensated or progressive shock, and stage three, irreversible shock. Each stage is defined by the body's reactions as blood flow slows as the body's systems spring into response in an effort to prevent the shut-down of the heart and kidneys. It is often precluded by massive physical damage; shock might also be seen as the body's attempt to call attention to a serious problem and protect itself from said problem. Recognizing shock can, in some instances, be difficult for the average person. Signs or symptoms of shock can range from low blood pressure and rapid heart rate, rapid or shallow breathing, cold and clammy skin, dizziness or fainting, weakness, anxiety or agitation, seizures, confusion or unresponsiveness, bluish lips and fingernails, sweating, and chest pain. There are a multitude of things that might incite shock. Such things include but are not necessarily limited to: heart conditions, heavy internal or external bleeding, dehydration, infections, severe allergic reactions, spinal injuries, burns, or persistent vomiting. Though not necessarily obvious to those looking in on said shock sufferer, he or she who experiences such things is almost painfully aware of their symptoms.

Something not often included on the list of possible causes of shock would be a surprise kiss, a spur-of-the-moment liplock, from the Archangel Lucifer.

In some far off corner of her mind Sam realized that she was, in fact, experiencing at least six different symptoms of this medical phenomenon overwhelmingly and all at once. She was not, if she were to truly analyze the moment, sure which was more upsetting; her sudden descent into what was surely compensated shock or the fact that she could only focus on the way his lips were moving against hers. The way his arms had slipped around her waist and were now pulling her in close. The icy feel of his tongue tracing the edge of her bottom lip. Most of all, of how much she was not hating it.

And for far too long she allowed herself to be held. To be kissed, touched as though they were familiar with one another. And in the end, that was what did it for her. Before she could really give anything much more thought, Sam was shoving with all her might and Lucifer was letting her go. She slipped to the floor violently, landing with a jolt and enough force to leave a trail of bruises along her left hip and upper thigh. For a moment, all she could register was her breathing, heavy and unbidden as she stared with growing horror into the eyes of her captor. He seemed, for perhaps a second, as shocked as she and in seeing that momentary slip the Winchester understood that nobody REALLY understood what was going on here. No one truly grasped the depth of the pile of shit within which both human and archangel found themselves steeped in.

“I don’t know what sick games you’re playing at, Lucifer-“

“All of this and still you allow yourself to remain blind.” His voice was quiet after the rage of her voice. “All of this...do you not see, Samantha? Do you not?” Desperation? Surely the Morningstar was not...desperate.

“Clearly not; so how about you lay it all on the line for the stupid human. How about you level the god-damn playing field for ONCE in your pitiful existence and explain something in a language I can understand.” And it seemed, within those seconds following her icy request, that he just might do that. Explain it all. Do his best to open her mind and make her understand. But then the moment was gone, his eyes had cooled and his smirk had returned. All of this, too, was filed away.

“One of these days I won’t need to explain it, Sammy. In the meantime, how about you take a nice nap?” A wave of the hand and the Winchester knew no more.

 

OoOoOoOoOoO

 

Samantha woke in darkness with the same sort of disorientation she’d felt upon initially awakening. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her mind. She listened, forcing herself to be cool, just BE cool, and hear her surroundings. Outside the wind was whipping a fresh sheet of rain against her windows in gales. She wondered vaguely if the weather had any impact on this false reality or if it was brought about by anything in particular. Linked to the emotional or physical upheavals of a certain archangel, perhaps? Ridiculous; the only thing possibly more ludicrous was the thought that he was doing it for her, knowing she slept better on a rainy night.

Sam snorted and rolled her eyes, feeling utterly unladylike, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Instantly she froze, feet mere inches from the laminate floor; she could feel the chill against the sensitive warmth against the bare bottom of her foot. Free? She was free to stand? Was that “fasten your seatbelt” sign off and was she, in fact, free to move about the cabin? For more than a minute she simply sat there, legs hovering just above that chilly floor as she waited for the hammer to fall. Waited for something to grab her from the dark, force her back into the bed and strap her down. When, after sitting in near perfect silence for almost four minutes, none of these things occurred, Sam tentatively pressed her warm toes against the icy linoleum. She gasped at the sensation, the sound impossibly loud in the quiet space as she jerked her feet away. More prepared for it the second time around, Sam pressed the pads of her feet against the floor, almost relishing in what she knew was a new type of freedom in whatever prison she found herself in. The fact that she could feel that coldness, REALLY feel it, was something she chose not to concern herself with.

Wrapping her arms around herself, the Winchester padded over to the window. Her eyes, calculating and bright despite the dimness of the room, sought out the window seat and she was not disappointed when her gaze caught on a glimmer of metal in the darkness. A sharp jerk upwards and the seat opened revealing a tiny storage space beneath it. The Winchester was caught for a moment between feeling smug and feeling desolate. The fact that the seat was actually a storage compartment was not a frequent occurrence in most asylums; the reference to it here in this place seemed to confirm what Lucifer had said; this place had been tailor made for her.

“Lucifer…” His name was out and whispered before she had time to truly register it. Her hands were pressing against her lips in a way that did not speak of hatred nor ill will. Her eyes grew distant for a moment as she stood there, rain beating against the window in gentle sheets and she remembered the kiss. Eyebrows knitting together in confusion, Sam could not help her errant and distracting thoughts. She wanted to feel hatred; she wanted to feel that anger, that all too familiar anger and frustration that had become her primary driving force throughout the entirety of her existence. The thing that, when all else failed, when everyone around her turned away or failed her, she knew she could rely on. The only thing she could rely on. And for the first time since she could remember HAVING feelings her anger was just…gone.

No, not gone. Just…suppressed. For some reason she just didn’t feel as…angry as she thought she should have.

Having crossed the distance to the window, Sam settled into the lightly cushioned seat and almost immediately leaned her forehead against the window. She closed her eyes and listened to the rain drumming against the window, relishing in the icy chill of the glass against her flushed skin.

No. No, there was no anger here. And this was surprising to the Winchester. The immediate suggested more than a few reasons to feel fury; trapped here, soul and all, with both the one who PUT her here and the one who meant to use her time here to turn her towards their own means… And still she was not angry.

Rather, she mused as her fingers brushed against her lips, all that remained on her mind were his lips on hers.

All she could think about were his arms around her.

All she was sure of was how right it all had felt.

All she could think about was the icy chill of his arms around her, cooling down her raging fevered frenzy and bringing her to a level that was somewhere she’d never thought to find again in her life.

But what was sickening to her, to the alleged demon hunter, was how desperately she longed to feel his lips on hers again.

 

OoOoOoOoO

 

A calm and restful night of sleep brought Sam to another sunrise. She was just as surprised upon awakening to the morning that she had not been restrained at some point during the night. Nor, it seemed as she once again swung her feet free to the floor, had she been drugged. Her mind felt as aware and as sharp as it had during her moments of lucidity in the early mornings. At this thought, Sam was forced to stifle a laugh; lucid? Aware? Absolutely not; she would need to begin considering that she was being pumped full of SOMETHING. There was no way, in this realm of reality or any other, that any of her prior thoughts had come from herself.

Outside the sky was gray, dark and gloomy and hinting to rain that would come inevitably to the happy home of the invalids and just in the hallway Sam could hear the hustle and bustle of what were likely her orderlies.

As though on cue the door opened behind her and it was all she could do to keep from cringing away from his voice.

“Sam…Samantha, sorry… Hey, come on now, let’s talk.” He ALWAYS did that…approached her like a wounded animal after they fought. So willing to open himself up and make himself vulnerable when, half the time, the fight was her damn fault to begin with. Her fists clenched, nails biting into the palms of her hands as she tried to control her rage with this situation. Somehow, she had the feeling that dealing with Lucifer every second of her time here would be-

(preferable)

-easier than dealing with this garbage. And when she turned, mouth a thin grimacing line, she was doused with a fresh bucket of guilt. Jesse stood just inside her room, the door having closed softly behind him. His left eye appeared to have been drawn in with a black felt-tip marker; a nearly perfect ring that nearly reached past his eyebrow and down below his cheekbone of bruised flesh that hurt her just to look at it. She could only imagine the mottled greens and yellows which would follow the nearly perfect shade of plum and black which surrounded his eye. The rest of him appeared relatively normal but she was sure if she were to look beneath his mop of hair at the back of his head she would find a lump the size of a softball. More than anything, Sam hated the way this false Jesse was making her feel.

Such guilt over lies and fake personas…it was dizzying.

Still, the tiny flip-flops her stomach were nigh impossible to ignore as he stared, trepidation dancing in his green eyes (had they always been green?) as he glanced at her from beneath bangs that just begged for a trim, were not easy to ignore. The Winchester chewed on her lower lip for a moment, eyes roving over the earnest form of her dead lover, emotions warring within her as she debated throwing the bed at him or listening to whatever it was he had to say.

“Sweetie, that bed is WAY too heavy for you alone to pick up and you know it. It’ll just throw out your back and then you’ll be in intensive care for the next week.” His laugh, a wave of warmth, washed over her and her gaze was drawn away from the bed. “You’re so much more lucid than usual. Listen let’s just talk. I’m not mad! I pushed you too hard too quickly and I ruined the progress you’d made this past week.” He trailed off, hands held out before him as though attempting to placate her like one might with a wild animal. She sighed, running her left hand through her hair as she moved to sit at the window seat. Jesse seemed to take that as a positive sign; he entered the room more completely and, watching her, he settled on the mattress. And for a moment, neither of them spoke; Sam simply held her head in her hands, elbows resting on her knees, as she tried to think of how to avoid apologizing to whatever entity sat before her. An apology would mean that she felt bad for what had happened. To feel bad for attacking one of the faux people, most likely a demon, whose only purpose was to keep her put and perpetuate the idea that she was trapped in a mental institution, was like feeling pity for Lucifer.

At this, Sam could not help but chuckle.

Jesse’s face relaxed at her reaction and his own smile seemed to curl across his lips. Something dark and uncharted flashed across his face, faster than lightning, there and gone as Sam lifted her head and turned an exhausted expression towards him.

“I hope you’re not here to talk about my feelings, whatever I’m supposed to call you, because that’s just not going to happen.” She paused seeming to mull over her own words momentarily, before shaking her head. “No, that’s not right. I’ll go ahead and state that I’m feeling pretty pissed off but, considering the circumstances…” She trailed off, shrugging as she leaned backwards against the glass. Sam tried not the think of how warm the glass was through the worn-out cottony fabric of her shirt.

“I guess there really is no foolin’ you, is there, Sammy?” Her reaction, a cringe and shudder which seemed to encompass her entire body, brought back that curious grin on Jesse’s face. His lips twisted and his eyes darkened and his teeth were bared in a look which suggested a humor too dark to be real. For a moment, this stunned the Winchester; never had so dark and dirty a look passed the genial face of her late beloved and never before had she felt so horrified to see so familiar a face.

“What the-“

“Oh come now, Sammy. Do you really think I’m just a bit character?” He chuckled, standing and moving slowly away from the bed and towards the window. All at once the Winchester was tensed and ready for action, body thrumming with a nearly tangible energy.

“Ahh, but you haven’t really given me much thought, have you? I mean, you did kill me, but who really thinks back to their hapless, helpless victims when so much time has passed? I’m surprised you even recognized me!” That cold bitterness…that icy fury… The adrenaline she’d felt overwhelm her body suddenly seemed to dissipate, leaving her feeling empty and hollow. Her thoughts stuttered to a halt, eyes incapable of turning away from the suddenly twisted image of the man she’d one day hoped to marry. His eyes were trained on her and only her, an ethereal glow Sam wasn’t quite sure was real emanating outwards in a visible halo around his face. This was not Jesse, could not be Jesse. Even in death, could he really have changed so much?

“Bullshit.” She managed, disgust still playing across her features as she glared down the frighteningly familiar face before her. “Jesse. He wouldn’t be here. I don’t know where the hell he would be but-“

“Tell me, please, O wise one, where I might be then? You think I’d be up in heaven? After being touched by that…that demon?” He spit, turning his head violently to the side. “I was sullied, darling. Ruined. More disgusting than a murderer in the eyes of God.” He was hovering over her now, imposing and straight and tall, that disturbing grin still dominating his features.

“But that’s alright. I’ve found WONDERFUL work here in this prison of souls. In fact, you could say I found my life’s true purpose!” He chuckled, turning from the shell-shocked Winchester as he made his way back to the door.

“But that’s a conversation for another day. Now…it’s nearly lunchtime, Sammy! Aren’t ya hungry? You haven’t eaten in at least two days.” And just like that, the twisted visage of her former lover was gone, replaced with the gentle, sweet face she remembered just above her own on lazy Sunday afternoons when neither of them had anything particularly important to attend to. Sam was fairly certain what she was experiencing right now was vertigo and, combined with her sudden and overwhelmingly ravenous appetite, she was left reeling and dizzy. He was standing at the doorway, hand on the handle of the now open door, looking to her with his calmly expectant eyes. Had that conversation just happened? Had any of it actually happened? Unsure of what could be considered reality in this insane asylum, Sam was now standing and was halfway to the door, shuffling her way along without even a second thought. Glancing back up from her feet Sam felt herself balking, the first real hints of a breakdown tugging at the edges of her sanity. It would not occur to her until later, much later, that those eyes had not been his own. That the color they had darkened to had been familiar and were not Jesse’s but were in fact the eyes of a creature she had thought she was finished with.

The man smiled and swept free from the room, leaving the door open behind him. Running did not even cross her mind; pain and another lapse in memory were not her goals of the day. It seemed, too, that Jesse did not think she would run. His back was to her as he walked, humming some song she couldn’t place beneath his breath and sauntering in a way that was far too familiar. His hips swayed and dipped to whatever it was he hummed, head bobbing and arms swinging and Sam was horrified to find herself unable to look away.

She was, in essence, studying him.

His everything was the same. His walk, his talk, the way his eyes lit up when he’d said something he thought would make her laugh. Even the way he styled his goddamn hair. But there was no way. No way it was him, right? There was no possible way-after going through the trauma that he’d experienced, after being sacrificed for such a stupid purpose, that he would end up here of all places. Right?

“Ahhh, here we are Sammy… Damn, looks like we missed lunch time. Go ahead and sit down, work some more on your puzzle!” He cooed, urging her with gentle nudges to her back into the room she’d seen momentarily the day before. Men and women of various shapes and sizes and ethnicities filled the room, each seemingly absorbed in their own menial and repetitive tasks. He was urging her towards a small table where puzzle pieces, each the size of a small fist, were arranged in a haphazard attempt to assemble them. Sam allowed herself to be led to the table and sat when Jesse pulled out the chair for her. With wary eyes she watched as he stepped around in front of her, winking and gesturing to the room she assumed the food was kept. It took everything she had to force half a grin to her face. Whatever he saw it was enough; he turned and sauntered from the room, sidling into the room he’d gestured towards with a particular emphasis on appearing sneaky.

The moment he was out of sight she started to move. She’d noted two orderlies in the common room itself as well as the one behind the protective plastic bubble and equally she noted that they were preoccupied with specific people. They hovered around their charges like mother hens, smiles so wide and genuine they had to be fake plastered over their faces, eyes filled with a false sense of caring. She’d also noted a small group of three people crowded in a corner. It was at an awkward angle to the all seeing bubble and it was, as far as she could tell, the closest thing she might find to an information source in this hell-hole. Trying her best to not look like she was looking to score but knowing that her furtive “left to right” glances were doing just that, she approached the equally twitchy trio.

“This may seem like a really, really weird question, so…bear with me,” She began, already aware that she sounded as weird as she felt. “Are any of you real?” She was greeted with silence and a series of wary looks, first between themselves and then aimed in slanted half-shielded glares at Sam. She could feel her face flushing but she refused to turn her gaze; she maintained eye contact, ignoring the heat in her cheeks and on her neck as they studied her, wishing she could not feel their eyes roving over her body.

“How do we know you’re real?” Finally, words! Almost instantly Sam felt the tension ebb from their little circle and could not help the smile that slowly stretched across her cheeks.

“I know this isn’t an asylum, and I sure as hell know I’m not insane or even mentally disturbed-well, despite what my sister might say, I mean.” She paused, staring with a little more certainty at the group of three; two men, one overweight and balding who looked like a lawyer and another who was leaner, attractive in a tall, pale kind of way. And a woman, older, flanked by the two men in a way that was heart-warmingly protective. Old enough to be Sam’s mom or maybe even grandmother; it was difficult to tell her age and Sam was afraid to push their already delicate and tenuous relationship over something so trivial.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re real. Or a damn good ploy. Most of the people here, if they’re not like us they’re just gone.” Sam shivered; the lawyer had a point. She’d passed a few people in the halls, seen the look in their eyes and the sagging in their faces. Most of them looked well past dead.

And she would be remiss if she were to forget about the screams at night.

“So. Why are you guys even here?”

“We don’t know, sweetie.” The woman. “The last thing I remember I was-I was turning down a proposition for a lucrative business deal from a very wealthy man. And that’s all. My name is Susan. This is Doug, and Jeff.” She gestured first to the one who looked like a lawyer and then to the youngest of the group. Sam nodded to each of them in turn.

“I’m Sam,” she said when they stared expectantly at her. “So, what about you guys? What do you remember?” Doug, the portly looking lawyer ran his hand over his face, pushing up a pair of nearly invisible spectacles to better pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Last thing I remember. Well, the last thing I remember was my promotion. Yeah, I’d just gotten the promotion to senior partner, at my firm,” Sam had to keep herself from cackling as he confirmed his lawyerly outward appearance. “And that’s it. I think there was a party or something. I don’t know, everything feels so blurry. Like I drank too much. I can’t even remember going to sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah, man, I’m the same.” Jeff worried his lower lip as he spoke, pausing occasionally as he spoke to do so. “Well, sort of. My dad’s a senator and he was just re-elected.” Now it was Sam’s turn to bite her lip, arms wrapping self-consciously around her torso as the implications their respective positions in the world provided. She was loath to explain that their bodies were likely continuing to function as normal in the real world. That slowly, bit-by-bit as time went on, they would begin making decisions that would alter something important. Decisions the likes of which would sway some faction this way or that and alter some person’s path.

The thought was not comforting to the already anxiety-ridden Winchester. How many souls were here? A cursory glance produced numbers upwards of thirty. Over thirty souls trapped here; the majority of them appeared incontinent, incapable of independent thought or movement. How long had they been here? Rage, sudden and intense and undeniable hit Sam; how long had this been going on? She glanced around the room and her rage swelled. There were so many here, trapped here. They made it all so much worse. How was she supposed to get them all free?

 

OoOoOoOoO

 

“Deanna…you’ve been here all night…you need rest.” Deanna jerked herself free from some twisted wakeful day terrors. Sleep had almost gotten her, nearly taken her away from the cold hospital with its’ cold hallways and colder rooms. Someone had shut off the overhead light and switched on the one in the bathroom. That same someone had likely been the person to drape the worn excuse for a blanket over her shoulders while she’d dozed. Her neck ached, arms and back sore from the awkward position she’d adopted, upper torso draped on the lower half of Sammy’s bed. Her gaze drifted reluctantly to her sister, prone and looking as though she were sound asleep. The consistent and constant beep of the electrocardiographic heart monitor or, as the nurse gently confirmed earlier that day, the EKG. It had become something like a metronome to the Winchester, something as reliable as the ticking of a watch or the whir of a fan. That both might stop at literally any moment in time carried more weight than Dee liked.

Coming back to herself felt a slow process. The world itself seemed to have slowed, to lose importance, as Sam lay comatose before her.

“Cas…? Cas what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be? Be…” She yawned; hiding her inability to remember which fruitless avenue she’d sent Cas away to investigate. Hands at her shoulders helped wake her, so warm and suddenly she was aware of just how cold she was. Dee twisted against the bed, left hand resting almost absently on Sam’s leg, to turn to Cas who stood just to the left of where she sat. His eyes were warm, gentle, and Dee hated the way hear heart pounded in her chest when she met his gaze.

More than anything, she hated the way her lower belly tightened and her breasts became sensitive and her mouth began to tingle. She hated the thoughts which flew unbidden into her mind and which begged her to take action. She wondered how much of this was pent up arousal and how much of it was her body looking for some sort of outlet for her stress.

The Winchester flushed, subconsciously gripping her sister’s leg in an attempt to ground herself; a physical reminder of where she was and what she was doing there. Simultaneously she averted her gaze, sighing out a breath she couldn’t remember holding.

“I could not find anything to help us, Dee. You said that Bobby would be here tomorrow afternoon, is that correct?” His voice was as soft and as gentle as his eyes had been and Dee hated the way her need flared within her.

“Yeah, that’s right Cas.”

“And you are exhausted, physically and mentally, is that also correct?” Dee shrugged, unwilling to verbally confirm his statement. “There is also nothing you can do here, Deanna. We should return to the hotel until Bobby arrives. Perhaps then we can pursue other options.” Dee ALSO hated how much she loved that Castiel had said WE and not YOU. Still… her gaze wandered back over to her sister and her guilt washed over her anew. Sammy looked so pale; lying there beneath the harsh fluorescent-tubed lighting, and it was disheartening to see her face devoid of the gentle glow the sun always left behind. Dark circles around her sister’s eyes, lips parted just barely to allow the passage of air even as the tubes forced in through her nose kept the oxygen flowing, hair fanned out around her head in a halo of darkness… Dee would be remiss if she ignored the resemblance she saw between her sister and her mother… Her mother, trying to sleep and beyond the parameters of exhaustion. Incapable of doing little more than asking Dee to watch over Sammy while she slept for a few hours…

Dee shook her head violently from side to side, withdrawing her hand from Sam’s leg and running it through her short hair. It hurt to admit that there was nothing she could do here but… Dee’s gaze wandered briefly back to her sister, incapacitated and responding to nothing. The tattoo on her neck had become more prominent over the past several hours, emblazoned on her paling skin as a shock of black; the wound the monster had caused had healed remarkably fast, scarred over to nearly nothing beneath the twisting of the tattoo. After a moment she stood, swaying for only a moment before Cas’ hands were on her forearms steadying her as she regained her bearings. He waited until she shooed him away before releasing the grip on her though his arms remained lifted, the angel wary lest her sway turn into a fall.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright Cas. I’m okay. I just- I guess you’re right. I need some sleep or something…” She rolled her shoulders and shambled out of the room, leaving the bathroom light on in case Sam were to suddenly wake in the night. Sammy wasn’t AFRAID of the dark, per say, but there was a reason they always kept that fan going and without a fan in the middle of the night or a light to break up the solidity of the night Sam tended to have trouble sleeping.

Thinking of Sam having trouble sleeping felt like another knife in her chest and it took all the strength she had left to force herself from the room, down the hall, wave to the nurse at her station, and shuffle out to her car. The blizzard, which had begun the night Sammy had gone into her coma-like state, had abated over the past couple of days. At least, it had calmed to the point where Dee felt at least safe driving the Impala the short distance from her new hotel across the street to the hospital that Cas had deposited Sam. Dee had to swallow past the lump in her throat as she registered, finally, that it had been just over forty-eight hours since Sam had become…comatose. Bobby was furious that she’d waited so long to get Sam to the hospital but beyond promising he’d be there the following afternoon, he said little else.

Except to hold on. Except that it wasn’t her fault and to hold on because he would be there as soon as he could.

Remembering their conversation the other night was…calming. Bobby had been on the other side of the country attempting to track down some artifact for some ritual a friend had requested to help rid their home of some particularly malevolent spirits. It was a long drive and Bobby was a helluva driver but even so…

Even so.

Deanna shivered, her body reminding her that it was late or, rather, very early. Snow swirled delicately, elegantly in the air around her as she shuffled quickly to the car. A flake landed on her nose, melting before Deanna had much time to register the icy sensation her skin. Cas had disappeared somewhere between the walk from the room and the parking lot. For a moment Dee allowed that loneliness to sink in; she’d been strong over the past two days, smiling and joking with the nurses and flirting with anyone who gave her the time of day. She researched when she was alone and did her best to make every second count regardless of what she was doing. Dee wondered if Sam would have had this all figured out by now and wished, for the umpteenth time, that it had been her and not her sister who had been attacked by the lake monster.

The Impala was icy, the seats cold enough to catch her by surprise and bring her back to the now. A couple of minutes passed in shivery silence, the Impala’s engine initially slow to heat, before Dee was reversing free from her spot and motoring across the lonely, empty stretch of highway to her hotel. Less than ten minutes after turning her car on Dee was shutting it off, slamming the door, and tromping through the freshly collected snow to her room. The world seemed to move past in a blur. The cold had seeped in past her jacket and was now clinging to her bones. Frozen, shaking hands missed the lock the first couple of times and it was with a great feeling of relief that she managed to unlock the door.

The heat was on and this was surprising to the Winchester. She had left the motel hours prior, making sure to leave nothing on. Old habits, she supposed, died hard. Deanna silently shrugged free of her coat and unlaced and removed her snow-coated boots before leaving the tiny bit of linoleum placed at the entrance to the room. Clad in her snow-dampened jeans and several sweaters the Winchester approached the second curious thing in the room; the bathroom. The door had been left open when she’d left and was, now, mostly shut. The light was on, she could see it in the outlines of the door. The hunter placed her hand at the small of her back, palm brushing the demon-slaying knife as she crept towards the door. When she reached the threshold she paused, still crouched low to the floor. She waited for her heart to slow to something close to regular before she gripped the knob and flung the door inward, drawing her knife and darting in a smooth, well-practiced motion to find-

“Cas? Castiel is that you? God DAMN it, Cas, I just about stabbed you, you-,” She paused, incapable of finding the proper angelic derogatory terminology to couple her sudden and fleeting anger. Due to this, it was unsurprising that she did not realize that the angel was half-naked, his shirt having been discarded in the corner in the bathroom. Based off of his current position (that being crouched in the bathtub that comprised the lower half of the shower), was either staring intently at something in said tub or was trying to perform some sort of human act of defecation.

Dee paled and strode purposefully to the tub, hands raised and mouth curling up into a look of wary disgust as she approached.

“Listen Cas, you can’t do that, and you definitely do NOT do THAT in THERE.” The angel turned his head towards her and Dee tried to ignore just how edible he looked, half-naked and crouched in that tub. Her heart did that weird flip-flop in her chest at the puppy dog look he gave her, head tilted and mouth just parted.

“I don’t understand.” Deanna snorted and ran a hand through her short locks, disgust replaced now with open humor.

“What d’you mean you don’t understand?” The angel shifted in the tub but did not stand.

“I thought this was where you bathe yourself.”

“Well I mean, yeah, it is. But you usually do that with uh…water.” Dee crouched down beside the tub and did not bring up the fact that one also does that naked.

“Every time I turn the facet on the water is cold, no matter how far to the left I turn the dial.” Dee was fairly certain that she had never before looked upon a grown man and felt both that he was the most adorable thing in existence and that she wanted him inside her simultaneously. Surely this, if nothing else, would cause her to wind up the some circle of hell or another. He met her eyes, his face a look of sheer confusion and hers a flushed veil of disinterest, and words were suddenly impossible. Dee swallowed.

“And you were trying to fill the tub…why?” Dee was gifted, then, with something she thought she’d never see. Cas was blushing.

“I…wanted to bathe you.” Dee blanched and stared, open-mouthed and bewildered. He turned his head towards her, something dark and warm and wholly innocent swimming in those depthless blues nodded. His nod pulled at some deep down inside and Deanna was not sure if she could ignore the sensation making her weak in the knees for much longer. Her lips parted and she could feel her skin growing hot and somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she needed to stop. Needed to back up and step away and not edge down this road. Not here. Not now. Not with everything that was happening. Not with the horrible mess her defenseless sister currently found herself in.

“Yes, Deanna. I wanted to bathe you. A few days ago you bathed and you seemed happy when you were finished. You seemed to enjoy it. It’s cold. I want to help.” She melted. It was, she would decide much later, his sincerity that finally did her in. Or perhaps it was the stress; her sister trapped in some kind of magical coma, Bobby furious and on his way to try and save the day, the world trembling on the precipice of the Apocalypse. It was so much, too much, and right now she realized she wanted something for herself. Some break, some escape, from the world falling to shit around her. She wanted this man, this literal angel, who had been protecting her and following her every step of this insane dance, the angel who had been reaching out to her for longer than she cared to admit now. Wanting her attention and still incapable of asking for it. Wariness, trepidation…she stored them in a back corner of her mind as she reached for him, still sitting in the tub, and pulled him up. Pulled him to her, helping him step over the tub.

“Alright big guy, first…we turn the water on.”

His hands were gentle as he helped her into the water. It was hot and carried the scent of vanilla and was nothing short of heavenly on Dee’s aching body. Her hands ghosted against his as he helped lower her into the tub, her insides clenching with the ever-electric brush of skin on skin. It did not take long for her to relax beneath his somewhat hesitant palms, soothed by the delicate caress of the water against her skin. She tried not to focus on the fact that Cas had not put his shirt back on, or that he was tracing that horrible scar along her back, or that she was just barely able to contain herself as she felt his breath on the back of her neck.

“Does this hurt, Deanna?” She shook her head and said nothing, rolling her shoulders and leaning forward to wrap her arms around her raised knees in an attempt to give him better access to her back. Not once could the hunter ever remember feeling so nervous in front of a man before; her face had flushed down into her neck and she could feel the heat, as she was sure he could see it. Behind her the angel began to hum, a low gentle sound in the dimly light bathroom as he continued to brush his hands across her back, tracing first one old wound and then another, his hands dipping beneath the water occasionally to reach her tailbone.

“What are you humming?” She finally murmured against her knees.

“It is an old song. The words have been lost to most but it speaks of peace and healing. It used to be sung during times of war or by nurses as they worked with the sick. It was believed to aid in their recovery.” Without prompting he began to sing; the words were in a language far too old to have a name but Castiel sang them beautifully, his rough voice slipping through the words and bringing forth the meaning without Dee needing to know what he was saying. His fingers moved to her shoulders and neck where rough pads rubbed gently into the skin, pressing away the tension she’d been holding for who knew how long. And then damp fingers were brushing up into her hairline, his nails scraping lightly into her scalp. Her head tilted backwards against his touch, and she gasped as what felt like a building tension that could only mean one thing raced through her body.

“Cas what the hell,” Her voice was huskier than she wanted it to be and even though she had already had this damn debate she was still stuck on this, trapped between wanting what felt so right and knowing that it was a mistake.

“You ran from me, damn it.” The words were out before she could think them through and now the gates were open. There would be no stopping her.

“I…I told you I loved you and you fucking blinked out of existence. I tried to hide how I felt and then when I realized I couldn’t I reached out to you. I tried to give you something I have never and will never give to any other creature known in existence and you shit on me, Cas. You left me alone in that fucking parking lot in the rain and I didn’t see you for months.” She stood, breaking contact with him and scrambled for the towel draped over the sink, simultaneously stumbling free of the tub. Slipping on the cold linoleum Dee did her best to wrap the towel around herself, furious and upset and wondering what the hell she was thinking when a pair of warm hands were steadying her at the doorway.

“You have no idea how much I want you, Cas, and you don’t care so let me go. Let go of me right this minute or so help me,” 

“You were drunk, Deanna.” His voice was soft and his hands were tight against her arms but all she could do was blanch from him, blinking and whipping her gaze up to meet his own.

“The hell I was-,“

“You had had four beers and three shots of whisky and could barely stand up straight. Do you honestly not remember?” There was no anger in his voice, only a type of incredulity that had Dee stunned into silence.

“I only left you there because I was going for Sam; that’s why she came so quickly to come get you.” That night that felt so long ago had blurred over time into a scene straight out of a romantic trash novel; Dee trapped alone in the rain after the man she had finally confessed her love to had left her. Was she remembering it wrong? Something cold in her gut told her that he wasn’t lying.

“I knew what you wanted that night…and I was unwilling to give it to you, Dee,” She flushed at hearing her nickname come from his lips. “I did not want you to do something you might regret when you had sobered up in the morning. Heaven had been calling so…I left. I did not know what else to do.” She was all at once stunned and humiliated and happier than she could ever remember being.

“But what does that mean for me now, Cas? What does that mean?” Her words were almost inaudible in the hazy warmth of the bathroom, hands clutching the towel to her chest as one might a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. His left hand left her arm and fingers pressed up into her chin, tilting her face until she was looking him straight in the eyes.

“It means that I want to be with you. It means that I reciprocate your feelings. It means that I love you.” He bowed his head to meet hers and when their lips met Dee was understood that there would be no stopping her. Not now, and not ever again.

And later, as they lay curled around each other, limbs entangled and Dee warm and fuzzy and drifting into the fade, she wondered just what it was they were getting themselves into.


End file.
